Day Book karen kuehn

Always Carry Your Camera

2012-01-27T23:33:00.000-08:00

Ready set go. I am in and out of so many interesting places and people's lives that I don't really get too precious about my gear...I always have at least one camera in my purse..yup its the kitchen sink, camera, leather-man, tape measure, work gloves, headlamps and you name it...I'm ready. Sometimes I toss in a flash but sometimes I just go with the flow...try to capture images differently from the time before...work with what is available is my preferred way of shooting when I'm running rogue. Here's some pics from last weekend going to the ABQ Social Club, had a blast with doc pals and aka Rocket. I've seen some of the best Drag shows in America and I have to say that right here in ABQ New Mexico the girls were hilarious, warm and wonderful. Had a great evening with less red tape for shooting than the major cities...I didn't go with the intent to shoot but always I do!

Drag Education

The Hostess Sabrina

Hair and body to die for...seriously a beautiful soul

shake shake shake

I love the retro feel

Some slow exposures with the use of zoom

Backstage is always more interesting to me.

Sabrina shares a smoke with Tod

Huggin our pal Jeff.

CULTIVATE POSITIVE THOUGHTS . . .

2012-01-26T11:40:00.000-08:00

Salmon River Inn, Karen Day shared this place with many of us over
the years for her"Burning Woman" birthday weekend in the fall.
Lovely being with a 25+ women of all ages, themed for full throttle adventure.

PEACE BOUND
Looking up sky gifting blue
Bikini Farms
4 Acres....
Grow!
My kid; a genius
Artful earthfull living
Overalls on, hands dirty.
What's not to L O V E ?
A welcoming hug always here for you.

In this economy one has to look around and re invent themselves. Were all connected, earth and mankind a very John Muir mindset.
Everyone is feeling the crunch and we have to work with others and try to elevate our possibilities by nurturing what we do best.
Look around and make a daily plan to do five good things that reflect who you want to be.
Example:
1. Love someone...reach out and just hold someones hand in the simplest form unconditionally
2. Love your self and others with a divine light.....yes look up and give thanks to your Gods if they are good and not killing that is the point.
3. Pay attention to your partner, family, kids, animals, take time to be present and hear what they say with their hearts and eyes. Being present doesn't mean shutting them down because your not hearing what YOU want to hear. Listen, acceptance and non attachment will help.
4. Cry if you have to and be human, that's right open that heart Chakra and let it out.
5. Act in truth of your heart felt feelings. Be true and clear up all things messy.
6. On a lighter level....if you make art you can teach do workshops, cooking and welding and walking dogs...all great skills, comfort others...we are all vital souls full of possibility. Make a step towards your community, volunteering work may not pay the bills but you are karmic-ally helping and who knows maybe you will meet an amazing person that will be a conduit and key to the next best thing happening in your life. Easier to say I know but never give up hope and always let go of what isn't working. I can only photograph a human so many ways with the same chair...maybe more than most but sometimes you gotta change. Evolve with faith and believe it will be better. It will.
If your happy your work will feel better and so will you, find some light in your lives and reflect it.
If you are jobless, be kind to yourself and know that you have much worth and that the world is a crazy place right now. Lean on friends ask for help, as they care for you if you let them into your deeper soul. ASK!
Make a plan. List the things you do best and make one of those things bankable for your world.
Don' t give up....just reach out and ask ...keep asking and believe in your ability to do good works and be an asset in someone s life.
Especially yours. Look up and know that the the Universe will provide. Your good people and just don't be beaten down by whatever is lacking in your life....We so want to control our lives and others when in fact...sometimes...the chapters change and the book is over.

I have had a few long rides with major magazines...than one day I crossed the bridge of no return...spoke up and well...I burned a bridge or two.
Regrets but....more fish in the sea with more flavor and you have to believe in your talents and if they aren't working for you ....change....let go of the old and just let it be.   Forge a new path and fill it with what you love. Make art, make food, make love with a happy joyful heart.
Good luck with it all.
INVENTORY:
Take a little inventory about who you are now.
Have you vacated your heart for some company or a position that props you up for a star/brownie points?
Possibly living your life for another person harboring resentment's! Rolls are always in a state of flux in relationships.
Are you job less and feeling less than more "the world is done with me". No the world is not done with you.
End of day whose got your back? Whose back to you have?
Stuck, dam place to be....change is hard and even harder for older people...lighten up and loosen up everything is impermanence...a difficult concept for Westerners. Let go let it be and move toward learning about what isn't working and grow. It's okay to change your life anytime.
Don't you want to be happier? Are you happy? If so than lucky you. Namaste your a great reflection and example to others around you.

"You are like a candle. Imagine you are sending light out all around you. All your words, thoughts and actions are going in many directions. If you say something kind, your kind words go in many directions, and you yourself go with them. We are ...transforming and continuing in a different form at every moment."

Thich Nhat Hanh

Don' t give up, most likely you all have some special talents to share with others....Even when you've surfed the tops of waves sometimes you get tossed off and you have to find a new wave or a better location to be who you are....we get older and recycled and well its all about cycles in life and creating new possibilities...and maybe the Universe is trying to say....IT S TIME TO CHANGE...move on and start a new fire.

Brie, June 1968, Brie, France. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

THE MINDS EYE deserves a rest and some kind consideration....sit breath....ponder....energize and yes REST.
Today my friend Eric Swanson shared some thoughts from his Rimpoche
If you make time for sitting and letting your mind be still as the thoughts arise and flow as they
"traverse all the paths and levels and in this very lifetime to attain full and complete enlightenment is definitely unlikely for most of us.
But that isn't a bad thing. Since time immemorial up until now we have been wandering in and out of one state after another.
You don't have to achieve enlightenment right now, but if you direct yourself towards that goal, that is the direction you are moving.
Slowly engaging in all the different ways for taming the mind/meditation and they will all gradually ripen in you. " Pema Chodron says to say the word "THINKING" when those thoughts are basically cluttering your mind. It works especially when its a runaway train. I place my hands on my head, feet flat on the floor and ground myself. Thoughts are concepts that can cause panic, anxiety and grief, or when your joyful, the complete opposite, a vibrant feeling, calm and your soul can reside in a kinder place. The human mind can be complicated, the body sometimes rules us with its chemistry to cradle or rock our worlds. Go with it whatever it is and know its part of you being true to whatever your feeling. Acknowledge it and move your energy toward health and wellness. If it pains you...work through it...don't sweep it away...it will drift back...go through it....the other side is more evolved....be gentle with yourselves if you have had little experience dealing with deep past painful places that scare you. Pema has books about such things. THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU and many other invaluable books.

Sitting and feeling is better than medicating and padding the soul with booze, most assuredly a depressant that doesn't allow one to sleep long nights, smoke and pills...it all has some sort of shifting on a mind for sure...but be it pure or polluted....to be awakened and open for a present sense is ultimate.
Spirituality is by far a path for calming an over energetic and stirred mind. We are all human and if we acknowledge our feelings verbally we can face our fears and over come what may feel like a dark devastation. In the wheel of life and living we feel it all if were alive....too alive sometimes but be not ignorant as growth can create and cultivate new ways of seeing feeling and being. Its not an easy path but its each souls journey to get the lessons and be more awake. Zombie I am not. I encourage those of you who struggle to simplify and those who hide in work to wake up and make friends with your soul self, creatives hang in there in this rotten economy....don't give up....reach out help and ask for help. Pray.
The past is gone. Now is where its at.

"Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, no feeling is final."

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

“A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.”

Carlos Castaneda (1931 -)

Authors I recommend: Pema Chodron - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pema_Ch%C3%B6dr%C3%B6n
Eckhart Tolle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle
Wayne Dryer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Dyer
Charlotte Kasl - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Kasl
Ondrea/Stephen Levine - Embracing The Beloved
Thich Nhat Hanh - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh

Models Come in All Shapes and Sizes

2012-01-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

photograph by karen kuehn for the NYT Sunday Magazine

A fine subject modeling for a story on organ transplants.

No we didn't drug him, he was brought in by an animal handler and you could tell he was well loved and calm. Popped him right on the styled table and as you can see he is really looking me right in the lens.

Pigs are more human than most humans I know.

Very loving and friendly.

Loyal and observant.

Since this session I rarely can eat bacon, sausage and pork parts.

Rainbow colored foods are the recommend of Deepak Chopra

I have two sheep on my farm and you can smell the lamb.

ZZ and Dot, they follow me everywhere and are part of my family.

In a perfect world we co exist in harmony.

Darwin in a simpler world less manufactured is substance living.

Too many people on this planet, too much pollution and consumption and waste.

Easy to see, more difficult to remedy.

But if we each do our part for thinking
GREEN Conservation

Future generations will be better off.

The future of our planet needs all our care.

Old news just a reminder.

Look those animals in the eyes and you will eat less pig, less if you really look.

Same with Dolphins... The Cove by my friend Louie Psihoyos is a must see.

http://www.opsociety.org

AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER

2012-01-24T15:10:00.000-08:00

A M E R I C A N W O M A N Photographer/Journalist/Artist

Today I was really looking at the stats of who looks and google's and finds my work on line!
European clients were pretty vacant, and USA was packed with all kinds of viewers. So I think by posting AMERICAN Photographer, possibly someone in need of a shooter in the USA may find me on line. I would love to work for Euro Clients here in America. Living in New Mexico where I am centrally located I can travel with ease to both coasts for projects. Grazie Neri was my agent in Italy for decades so possibly that connection can be fired up once again. A BIG HELLO to the editors, art buyers and publishers in Europe, Please give a shout out and let me get you American stories. I would love to be your photographer to capture and get you those USA stories that feel authentic, creative and unique.

FARMGIRL Productions, Inc.
karen kuehn Photography
6 frontier ct. peralta,nm 87042
Tel. 1.505.401.5987 c
kuehnphoto@earthlink.net
http://www.karenkuehn.com
http://www.karenkuehn.com/indexarchive.html
http://karenkuehn.blogspot.com/
http://www.blurb.com/search/site_search?search=karen+kuehn

Whats He Building

2012-01-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

Tom Waits one of my favorite artist.

Artist of New Mexico

2012-01-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2903314

The current version has about 60 artist shot here in NM.
Most of them are shot 8x10 with a few acceptations.
You can visit my books on http://www.blurb.com

Sunny aka Sun Ra

2012-01-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

Winter coat
Here today gone tomorrow
Unfettered, restless, thick with memory
The smell of truth lays upon his back
In hail as it evaporates like writing in the sand
Shed light as growth of Spring approaches
Bees upon the chicken feed
Buds tight shades of green
Winter coat shroud out cold character
A lighter world with wonder right rounding the bend
Sunny weather for the sleeker sexier
We wander in good company
Dear friend you carry me and my heart
You've carried another
Every ride a prayer of thanks as you always deliver
Safely home in our circle unbroken
Harmony in our connection
Only in harmony when loved
Carry me home.

Thank the God's
I can feed more than myself

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle,
or you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
–Albert Einstein

Along the Rio Grande

2012-01-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

photograph if James Rideman and Jetsin 1/20/12 out my back gate along the Rio Grande
Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

posted Aug 01, 2010

“Sometimes I stand on the river bank
and feel the water take my pain,
allow my nostalgic brooding
a reprieve.
The water flows south,
constantly redrafting its story
which is my story,
rising and lowering with glimmering meanings—
here nations drown their stupid babbling,
bragging senators are mere geese droppings in the mud,
radicals and conservatives are stands of island grass,
and the water flows on,
cleansing, baptizing Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.
I yearn to move past these days of hate and racism.
That is why this Rio Grande,
these trees and sage bushes
the geese, horses, dogs and river stones
are so important to me—
with them
I go on altering my reptilian self,
reaching higher notes of being
on my trombone heart,
pulsing out into the universe, my music
according to the leaf’s music sheet,
working, with a vague indulgence toward a song
called
we the people.”

Jimmy Santiago Baca by Karen Kuehn

National Geographic Cats Story

2012-01-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

photo by Tim Mantoani
posted on Wired Today

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/01/famous-photogs-pose-with-their-most-iconic-images?pid=1612

Whose At The Wheel

2012-01-19T20:00:00.001-08:00

CHAKRA'S
YOUR TOOL BOX MAYBE MISSING A FEW or IS SOMETHING BROKEN?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra

Whatever ails you, often you can refer to charts that can give you insight on how to fix things within your body/temple. Tonight a lovely friend posted that she has a throat issue...yup the C word....she's a real sweet heart so I started reading my books on how to resolve her rare form of Cancer. Googling all the sites like:
10 anti cancer foods
10 foods that cause cancer
Crazy Sexy Cancer...http://www.crazysexycancer.com
Anyways...made me want to share a few charts.
Western medicine...I get the drugs and all but I also get nutrition and basic exercise and mental wellness. Some disorders are gene driven but can be managed with medicines/ herbs and Spiritual practices. Here's a few charts...I have always related to the snakes in the medical symbol as a chakra inspired piece. Snakes are about transformation in native cultures.
Again...seeking information and iconic meaning can be a helpful and powerful tool for healing.

TAP ON ANY OF THESE CHARTS TO VIEW WITH EASE

Educate Yourselves on ART

2012-01-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

photo by karen kuehn
Artist Studio France

http://www.nga.gov/collection/an.shtm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_artists
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/
http://www.ARTBABBLE.COM
http://masters-of-photography.com/
http://www.statue.com/famous-sculptures.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Great_Paintings

So Many great artists and pieces to appreciate, often I think its in NATURE where most of our great artist have collected and translated many inspiring works. Support your National Parks and Monuments. Did you know that after every Presidential person leaves and office that he and maybe someday she will be able to make a location deemed sacred. Jimmy Carter did this with Mono Lake for example.

360 Degrees of Emotion

2012-01-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

" People will forget what you said...People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel"

Maya Angelou

To feel is to know your alive...some native proverb that sometimes makes me want to shoot it! Too much feeling too much life...can make your skin peel. For those journalist that work Wartime scenarios my heart goes out to you. Too much loss to witness, it will change you...I have a few friends that yes they have somehow survived seeing slaughter of civilizations and emotional turmoil at there finger tips.
Eli Reed he's taken a bullet to his camera in the days of Nicaragua in chaos. Lived to tell the stories.
Nick Ut in Vietnam documenting the death and disaster as ravaged that incredible landscape and culture.
Shame on American Politics and greed.
For me its one day at a time...being an American I can say we are blessed in many ways...FAT with privileges and abundance.
Our problems are nothing compared to third world issues. Basic water needs and pollution contributing to things like River Blindness and all the things that bottle neck mankind into weak genes.
Food shelter and heath to sustain
Many barely have fabric for their backs and abuse for others such as rape of children with no regard for innocent souls.
We have it made here so all I can say is this day reach out and be kind to someone in need.
Feed someone you know that is hungry and look around.
I am in a freelance business and most photographers I know are suffering for the hunt for work continues.
Its a dog eat dog world at times but as Americans lets first practice kindness in our backyards.
Love our earth, conserve where you can.
Share where you can
And above all forgive and move forward with LOVE.
Avoid those who are self involved or teach them to blanket their robes of entitlement with others.
I know many a fine Lord and High Priestesses that have gone beyond for Green and splendor.
Usually they are the humble ones.
Need not sport their deeds but move quietly with their kind gifting as it may be.

Join Hands and Pray for Kindness and Peace

PRAY
we all can make a difference esp in little ways if you have faith you can heal those who need love
I thank those journalist who have shared and put their lives on the line for the world to see reality.

Nick Ut
photo by Nick Ut

Villager's Fleeing a Napalm Strike, Village of Trang Bang, Vietnam, June 8, 1972
© 2004 The Associated Press
A print can be purchased at the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe NM
http://www.monroegallery.com/photographers/detail/id/304

Eli Reed
photo by Eli Reed
Kids in Harlem

http://www.elireedmagnum.blogspot.com/
http://www.thecandidframe.com/

FARM FASHION for ART

2012-01-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

photo by unknown artist

THE INTERNET

The world we live in is abundant with information. On assignment I remember always pulling over to use the pay phones Touching base with editors and subjects. Now we have such a huge connection to the world through our phones! Some people live on the computers and phones. I am forced to use them as well for I need my connections for work and supporting the business of photography. Living on a farm I've managed to create a very cool life style. I have to work harder to render more jobs. NYC and all coastal work based out of those metro places needs to be courted. It was a choice I made for raising my one son. I removed him from the chaos of city life... He had an amazing life as a child living in Manhattan NY but the time came at age eight to move West.
No regrets just working harder to seek out assignments and let those editors and art buyers know that I do indeed exist and I love working.
The South West is an amazing place to live, so many things to do and art to make and interesting people to mingle.
I spend less time on planes and in cars and more time doing and making things that are less computer and more textural in nature.
Yes I fly for most jobs to far away places and that is great. I drive hours for local assignments. I consider my Diesel truck my home away from home. My office on wheels. I can't live without it. Sometimes you get a project in the back country and you find yourself driving over wash board roads to meet artist, weavers, native family's and Eco friendly types...it's all an adventure and daily feeds my life with a sort of earthiness I found lacking in the city.
I did however belong to the garden community in the lower east side NYC B & 4th. Good times but a 4x8 plot of dirt as now turned to 6 acres of sustainability. I need open space, stars, nature. These things recharge my soul and make me a better shooter for clients as well as my art.
Here on the farm ... I share my soul with many. One never knows whose gonna stop by and surprise you. Everyone is welcomed, coffee, fresh eggs and homemade goodies seem to be in the oven more than not.
Couture in past tense, a closet full of beauty and yet no place to wear it. I love fabrics and clothing, my parents always said I should of gone for the fashion photography career! I did not. I do sew and make things out of steel and found materials. My fashion is varied from Dickie's and work boots to lace.
I am very basic and busy with what feels real to me now.
I have no time to waste.
I see my life creating photographic essays and projects still however I have a hankering for sculpture on a huge forum.
I am currently making a mock up of a piece that I feel very inspired by three artist.
I can't share my idea right now but here's some food for thought.
Enjoy their work they are masters.
For me my future fashion will be my art.

Bok bok bok.

INSPIRATIONS:
Richard Serra
James Turrell
Tom Otterness

Richard Serra

James Turrell

Tom Otterness

2012-01-12T09:24:00.001-08:00

“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.”
Zen Proverb

Photographer New Mexico

2012-01-10T08:45:00.000-08:00

Sage and Pupil

2012-01-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

MIRROR OF WEALTH

If the student wants to learn the teacher will appear

Life lessons occur whether you want them or not! Not sure where that statement came from and really it's the idea and concept that is holding some truth for me this day! The Universe has a way of nudging you to evolve. You think you've conquered your life and pow...here comes the biggie. Wanting your cake and eat it too is not really the best way to fill your soul. One of the seven deadly sins; glutton. Its just a band aid for something most likely avoided. Why do people avoid things like conversations that are needed and change? Because it hurts. People don't like change especially elders it rocks their world and puts em them in shock. Dealing with reality can be paralyzing and debilitating. The more creative path would be to look the thing that you fear right in the face and deal. Avoidance just causes emotions to fester and creates unpleasant feelings for all involved. Pema Chodron my favorite teacher speaks of this when things fall apart.
Unknowingly a man whom I opened my heart, home and family imparted my most profound lessons to date. Real heart ache feeling like a heart attack only to be heart sick. A bad Romeo and Juliette. No Shakespeare here...only mirroring the familiar. Opposites when it comes to actions...fear or love..or is it love to pull a band aid off very S L O W L Y ? Truth revealed has been denied...for the dream can't die....can it? Yet the heart always knows the truth. Children hate to get punished where as adults deal! This is the very essence of my story. The lesson is to deal and be honest and truthful. Water from a stone I spent a lot of time sharing ideas and listening to heartfelt feelings about one mans life. I cared. And now I need to care about me. No one has my back unless its serves their needs. It is in this experience I share a huge loss of time to create art. I would like to share my lessons with you to avoid paths that cause you to stop making art. I have never done this till Fall 2010. I was paralyzed for love or what I thought was my future soul mate. So here goes a tale filled with reality checking, love and forgiveness of others and self for the sake of making art your hearts reflection. Mind you their are NO MISTAKES, no regrets only abundance as one can choose it. You choose your path and create it. No one else can have that much power on any of our lives unless you hand it over!

"You are my dream come true I've been looking for you my entire life."

I have spent the last 2.5 years in a strange scenario that holds only truth and lesson's. I held space for a what I thought was the love of my life. Statements like the one above held my attention as I wanted to believe in his words as truth! I really fell hard and felt it was a mutual feeling.

I didn't want to be involved with a "married" person. We developed a deep friendship and in time fell in love. I did not want to be with anyone who wasn't single. So I kept my distance, but emotionally we were every bit connected. This created a mess. Trying to do the right thing? Who would of guessed that your dammed if you do or don't? The connection, creative, sensually beautiful and mutually heartfelt was more powerful than a locomotive full steam ahead. In equal parts two people found each other and blew three peoples lives apart! No one made anyone do anything they didn't consciously choose. I didn't jump into this without tabling ideas of couples therapy and clearing his slate prior to this experience. Needless to say the emotional part of our connection grew in the first year....it was cut off so many times for doing the right thing and the attraction and connections were so obvious that neither of us could totally walk away. Even still the last note of thousands sent in the last few years left the door open to resolve at a later date. This is just a crumb and string to support what I feel is a crippled ego. How can a person be so unkind to crumb a bit of hope and play out New Years celebrations as if its all okay? Its all BS at the ladies expense. I can't imagine being a wife to a man that plays games. I never thought I 'd be "the other woman" not a title I would like to ever do again. I so tried to not be that person! But failed the sisterhood. Moreover than not I pushed hard on this man to make a choice and be good with it...to choose and have the drama be OVER. What I see is a stuck person....really stuck and it pains me and he will end up with nothing over a lack of evolution. Afraid to do real therapy will cost him the vitality and truth of his heart. This makes me sad for he is not a bad person but just a person who should of been accountable for wanting to be poly amorous. This is where men and women collide....the differences of lives growing together or apart.
By expressing my self I fearlessly take responsibility for my actions and its not my problem anymore as I accept the truth of my actions. I leave this as I deserve real love that is available to me 24/7, love that is public even thou private. I need not hear from all our mutual friends ever again how much this man loves me. I am sure the truth will make me the bad person for coming clean. The most important aspect lacking in this situation is to come clean with one s feelings, to be honest and for all parties to HEAR the truth. Its like beating a dead horse. I have had enough. If he was placed in a room with both women or asked what does your heart want ...I'd like to say he wants her as a business partner and me as a lover....how messed up is that one? Maybe its my ego but the lover aspect is huge, initiating intimacy with another has to be genuine and sober. Don't tell me you think of me while being with her ever again.
I know way too much about this situation and it turns my stomach to say the least. I am glad I am not the wife at this point. The Universe has spared me.
It's all sad and unaccountable. I thought and felt his heart loved me but his actions have been heartless to all parties including himself.
I am sorry very sorry I see my future with a man that makes manly choices and honors is his word. The thrill some people need has played it's self out. I was in it for love and I think this is where I was fooled and foolish. The problems with couples are not the lover....its there crap the marriage contains and no one to blame, however that is what un evolved people do....play victim. Its all sour now. And the lessons are costly for everyone.
I think in innocence and in the beginning all feelings were genuinely felt but in time...too much time without movement the entire thing became lies and painfully placed upon the women to determine its fate. I am not on hold for anyone. Therapy would of been nice. Did I become some couples sick game that they do to spice up a dead marriage? I have no clue but I do know that triangles are not for me. RUN. The situation is not a good one when a person is not resolved and in another relationship. Why is it that often humans need some sort of stepping stone, or spring board to muster up a departure? Regardless our connection was magnetic and if this person was in a room with facing me now they would be a hard pressed to not want the closeness we do indeed feel. I have pushed it away a million times and the entire story is just one of tales and twists that make no sense to me. Loving someone doesn't mean pretending to be nice....giving them lip service to support a future on the "high road". This was a painful process and the lesson is invaluable. I can't speak for anyone other than myself. Choice is huge and the Universe has a way of opening one door and closing another. But sometimes FEAR in people shuts them down and they retreat often dead inside for fear rules their souls. People learn by repeat doing things...repeat repeat repeat and be it good or bad its seriously the way humans condition themselves. To choose with real awareness can be frightening and freeing. I see people manipulate things to make it seem okay. Like a child moving food around the plate to avoid intake. Nothing really changes...it s still all there just more messy. Conditioned to routine patterns? NOT everybody has boundaries. A parental tool that is seriously lacking for some. The rat wheel owns so many Spirits and it works for some and others get bored and dip a toe out here and there for recreation. Seems to me like a lost pet analogy. Not enough food at home so the pet seeks and consumes elsewhere....pet still returns home because it can. Routine and "duty" calling. The mirror is always there and if your not looking, well you will keep wandering out the gate for recreation or you will shut down and die a lie with that leash cinched tighter round one's neck. Be no bodies habit or secret ever its just all wrong. Asking for honesty doesn't mean you will get it. Whats the point? Seeking a happy heart at the expense of others is not good. The entire experience is for me one that just never had a plan of inclusion but rather vacant posturing for what? Wanting two women for very different reasons is "MAGICAL THINKING".
I'm guilty of that as well, always hopeful that ownership and a real apology with heart and soul would be revealed with this plan that included me! Right?
My life was so open to creation and manifesting but it seems that was my "Magical Thinking". I had such faith if the feeling felt together that it blinded me.

It takes time to recognize the NATURE of an animal.
The truth is in each animals character a result of what they DO
Actions speak louder than words.

As humans we so desperately want to believe in all the good in our lives and our partners chosen. And why shouldn't we? Our choices are suppose to be something of perfection if were controlling our lives! This is a perversion of nothing real to me at all. Life is messy at times and those mess ups are really triggers to bigger issues that are often gnawing at one's core energetic being. We have to acknowledge the things that are not working and if we are brave enough we can fix it. Moving away from what is not working is healthy. Change is good and can give room to new growth and happiness in everyone s life. For artful souls, art many times runs nose to nose with your personal life and to live your life through your artful ways can be very positive and reflective. To wish you were this or that and try to create all possibility's is sometimes not realistic. Life tosses you hard balls and can wipe the life you know clear off home base. This is the non boring part of life....I don't wish it upon anyone but it happens....for a reason?? Sometimes to shake you up and make you grow? Only you can look at it. Deny it or play it. I got played and when real pain is involved no one wins. Choosing to be whatever it may be...loved or happy or angry is a choice...all feelings are acknowledged. But its tough when others are part of your artful life...if you stop making art and rob yourself of it based on another only you can pick it up and make it better. If you are not productive its only you who make it so....Others can have an affect for sure....if you're not getting the love you want naturally you are upset. Dishonesty breeds pain. So maybe it is not the path that is right or evolved enough for you. Just look inward and determine what is truth and what is misinformed or stretched out of proportion...a story that you have held up and for what and why and how does that serve you really? So much drama seems like the wrong kind of attention and if you don't depart your situation than why drag others into it? This I will never understand or see fruitful. My error for putting faith in words without integrity for my life path. Foolish and now I know.
My life is my art and since 2010 Burning Man all those images have just sat in my darkroom untouched. Hit the HOLD button for all the wrong reasons and now I can take my lessons and apply them to my artful life once more. What really resonates for me in my lessons is to be strong with creating boundaries.

NEVER let another persons story bring your story down.
Don't put your art on hold. The result will be Toxic.

If people you love are unhappy then set them free to sort it out with a professional and don't let the drama be your life. You can inspire them and share knowledge but if they don't want to grow it is not your job to deal with the repression and fear that holds them down rather than frees their being. Let go. Or be ready to put on a crash helmet as your life will run a roller coaster to no where fast. It will rob you of valuable time. Both teacher and sage. No dignity, no good can come of it, no integrity backing words and feelings is just that....empty ideas that can't feed your heart. Truth reflected in art and life is pure. Truth is not denying an unhappy heart. Truth has integrity.
I think their is a timeline and a healthy way of viewing our lessons...For me seeing success in my students getting excited about being more open to love people with this thing we call a camera that comes between us and them is interesting....its like music...we play a few bars...with the lens there and we remove it and engage....than start again! I feel very connected to my students progress and not unlike the people in my life if progress is positive we all win.

It's great to see each person make progress.

This year I hope to be channeling my feelings into my art to create a life that is back on track with good and kindnesses is my goal. Edit out all liability's and don't put your life in art on hold. Agendas of others may not be healthy for your art. It certainly took mine down. My fault. I got derailed and lost some time truth be told. Its all a story and my part in it was not one I wish to repeat. A dear friend's sage advise is if there is not dignity in a situation, run for your life. RUN. Avoid all situations that care less for your soul. I want to create positive art and when you come off something that has taken you down so long its hard not to address that pain body....but in this blog I am addressing it as a letting go to make really beautiful art and pray for those whom have suffered. I am not interested in fear based living, posturing and being used as a scape goat for other people's boredom and unhappiness ever again. People are not TOYS. If you have the blessing a soul before you don't abuse it. Living a life that creates love rather than robs it interests me. I have witnessed a painful process in another person I loved and I became collateral damage only to support another souls starved ego. I have my imperfections and caused my share of tears....but in the end we are all accountable and pointing a finger at another to make them a villain or villainous is not honest and feeding a true story to sustain oneself. It's a cop out. Make art and make a good heart. Get your lessons and make something that heals hearts and loves the world back. I ask to be only a better person in my resolve of time lost in this year to come. I ask to be left alone and safe from stories that are not true to feed love to our hearts. Make better art and be more accountable this is all I have to offer to anyone that cares to know about being a better soul. I am fully accountable for my part in my life choices. In this one can own one's life. Refuse to play roles like victim, it's unattractive, most likely if your in that role you starred in it for many years prior.

Shape shift your life and create joy. If something is unhealthy it hurts...its in that pain area is where your rebirth can occur and if you dare to evolve and own your choices than you are making a baby step forward and can celebrate. Wait for no one to bring you joy. If its lacking in your life and you see it in others...be thoughtful and don't grab onto there's and try to capture it. I have been a bright light for many for a very long time and strangers meet me and latch on to my energy...I am usually careful about whom I share my deepest soul parts. My face got got touched once upon a time by a dear soul...this person I feel was hiding behind a mask, I could see the deeper soul who needed to be understood. I understood. And my lesson is to keep healthy boundaries. Just because I have a brightness doesn't mean anyone else should conquer and divide it. Like life saving 101...the person is drowning and if you go to save them you may go down too...Swim away...send in the coast guard but don't drown as a result of another. My life went into a holding pattern for someone else's personal journey...they may never arrive anywhere brighter than where I am already rooted. It sucked the life out of me and my art.
ART from your heart...don't loose your heart or put it in the hands of anyone other than yourself. People will tell you what they think you want to hear. Artful dodgers will omit real details and "WIGGLE" away from truth and beauty. Truth hurts for most people and I can see that it doesn't matter for many..they still want the dream that more often isn't shared. Some cultures have made it their profession to guilt and insure that suffering is at a premium for others...This is all pointless and abusive. Facts are "You don't always get what we want." and probably its for the best. Thanks Mick.

I don t know why people string things along with ideas of a future together in one moment and in the next they are doing the exact same thing to another human. EGO....its really cruel and unhealthy. Cats out of the bag...don t be anybodies secret but rather their embodiment of true love and friendship. In life things happen to all of us...real life good stuff and tough stuff. Get the lessons and don t let it take your art down. If its complicated maybe walking away is healthy. Or skirt it before it can embrace your being. Every action will follow with a reaction. Walking away and make art can't hurt if you don't invest your heart....it hurts afterwards. My family reminds me always of how happy I am when I'm in my art creating beauty and caring for others.

One Cake at a TIME - Set Boundries - Never Lie and you will have a HAPPY HEART

A prayer for all those whom suffered this last year.
Lack of love can make people become angry and sometimes become people they never wanted to be. This happens...it's life fully loaded. If you don't like the way you have evolved or un-evolved? Change it. Once you go through the void there is no return. Life is not as you've known and it is suppose to change or why would have it been so?
If you seek truth you will find a better way. All facades just crumble in time.
Experiences can be monumentally good or bad pending YOUR PERCEPTIONS.
Choose growth and be good with it. Namaste. Go with your Gods and be the best you can be now.
I pray for forgiveness and peace for all.
I forgive all for labels and paralysis
I am thankful I know how to love.
Amen

The Ultimate Partnership is one with yourself
In Buddhism we say it is your Buddha Nature
In life just being the best you can be.
Practice is all we can do as humans.
We may not get to love the people we have loved intimately and soulfully till the end of time.
In an ego less bigger picture I feel love for all.
In my good heart of hearts I wish for those who suffer to be free to find the love they so seek.
If you can't shine and dance freely than the dance is most likely one to sit out.
Pretending only cheats those we love and creates pain.
Love with intent and honesty and your life will be your art.

Keepin it RAW & REAL that is what an artist heart does.
Their no substitutes for TRUTH
Nothing FAKE about it.

Yours Truly The Pupil

Eleanor Preger Testimony

2012-01-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

Saintario Artist; Nicholas Herrera at home in El Rito NM

Kristin Diener; Artist/Jeweler shares her lovely trinkets that are museum pieces while being a subject for Eleanor w workshop week.

Up close and personal with David Michael Kennedy Artist/Photographer - El Rito NM

Photographer Kyle Zimmerman graciously sits for Eleanor at her studio and at home.

Laura Flick models for Eleanor at home with her partner and favorite guitar

Eleanor working with Tommy Hicks, owner of the Shidoni Foundry

Eleanor Preger photographing artist Rick Allred and his kitty in Santa Fe NM

My Workshop With Karen Kuehn

As a photography enthusiast, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, contacting Karen Kuehn for a workshop.
I approached her because I had done a few landscape workshops & wanted to expand my horizons to photograph people & learn about lighting & composition. When she said I could get from A-Z in a more rapid process doing a one on one workshop, she wasn't kidding. The bonus was I had no idea I was going to spend the week w/ such a warm, unique, conceptual, upbeat, unusual, interesting, intuitive & beautiful woman.
I've admired her work for the past two years. She has been given a gift with people photography.
She cuts to the chase to do soulful images that really tell a story about her subjects.
This is not easy for most. She opened a lot of doors and gave me many tools to manifest better images
and experiences. I loved the different photo opportunities she created for me. Priceless!!!!
Karen assessed, listened & acknowledged my wants and needs. Karen was able to read between the lines & stretched my abilities, then back off & let me be. I would never do less than a five day workshop. Karen is committed & give so much information to teach & share, one would be robbing themselves of a once in a lifetime experience w/ you, the High Priestess of Photography.
Group workshops are fine, but a one on one workshop with Karen is the best bang for the buck.
Thank you for widening my path for my photography future.
Karen will definitely be a part of it. I look forward to my next session.

Appreciatively,
Eleanor Preger

New Mexico Photographer

2011-12-28T18:39:00.000-08:00

NEW MEXICO Based Photographer

New Mexico is a great hub to get to either coast, LA or NYC.
http://www.karenkuehn.com
call me at 505 401 5987
Taking assignments daily.
Teaching one on one Workshops that target photographer/artist goals.
Advertising and Editorial bookings
Patrons contact me to get an update on current art projects.

Thank You
Happy New Year 2012

Design That Makes My Mouth Water

2011-12-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

1949 MERCURY two door

This is my dream car..."when the going gets tough the tough go shopping"
When I have some spare change....this is exactly what I want to make my life rock.
I would change the tires and make certain its a good day driver....no its not green at all but it makes me feel good. Santa if there is any list...put me on it.

Love this car, and the auto culture.

STORY LINES

2011-12-19T08:56:00.001-08:00

photo courtesy of Nimpitja Gyuto House Australia

The ghanta (Sanskrit) or dorje drilbu (Tibetan) bell, tantric instrument held in the left
handof monks as they chant - it represents the perfection of wisdom and emptiness.

I never bank on hearsay. Believe what you know to be true. We can't control how others interpret our images...if they decide to see and feel negative feelings or create stories that are not as the artist has intended than that is their nature. Not yours. Once I took some children to see some Rosenberg exhibit in NYC and I had all the kids tell me what they saw in his work. It was pure and honest. Adults come with baggage and create stories that somehow are in part supporting a pattern, good bad indifferent. What role do you create in your life...the hero, the victim, the sage...who are you really? I feel like the student learning and feeling daily...compassion for those whom are stuck and in pain....joy for those whom have conquered with full awareness of their being by being in the moment with love and grace.

Today I heard a story that was only half truth, knowing the truth I thought wow...some people really like to play to the down side....how sad.....Create a positive life experience and you will have it. Just asking oneself how can I make my life better? What do I want in my life? What are the steps to create the life I want is a positive step toward being more creative and light.
Writing down ideas and concepts creates change and forward thinking.

Art for me is about manifesting ...I have an idea on my table now...its huge....probably will cost tons to make into reality but baby steps....a drawing, words, calls for materials, make a model and get a quote from a fabricator on costs.....its all in the works because I believe this idea will inspire others to be accountable and full of love and gifting good energy into the world with a fertile idea to come true. This is the way visionary things happen, stirred with a joyful energy and with ease. I know many people whom create with ease and spew out ideas .....its not difficult at all..it just happens. Now a timeline will unfold and maybe I can make a deadline, maybe not...but with gentle stride I will move toward the birthing of a valid and beautiful project that can occupy space for inspiration for all.

If your unhappy with your story change it...I did and I choose health and wellness...love is abundant and thoughtful in my life. I pray for all peoples to find peace in their Spiritual journey.
I have surrendered to accept the things I can not change and find abundance in my present moment. Money can 't buy love, so if your stuck in a rut over that ebb and flow maybe we have to accept and push harder to find peace....however those I know in the rat wheel seem hardly peaceful or happy. I was there and now I am stepping forward one day at a time with ease and my spirit knows this is my path....art and love, poetry is in the living daily with laughter, tears and awareness. Native culture has a saying " to feel is to know your alive" sometime feeling is too alive for us so be gentle with yourselves.

In art I find it very telling how humans interpret the vision before them...those who find the negative are usually less enlightened for the bigger lessons and those who find the light in even the darkest corner are by far more open to live and are not gripped by the material rather moved for the poetry that is before them....ever present. Those people are the ones that sage our way forward. Pay attention....or you will just repeat your less attractive patterns and never really find true happiness. Maybe those folks want to wallow in pitty and need for attention....that is not a story to nurture....feed the love and get the love, starve it and you will remain on empty.

Good luck with all the ways you see the world and art before you. Find the joy and lessons or live miserably. Good luck with your choices. Accountability is always a tricky thing with fragile egos.
We as humans are all things that matter.

Sending love to all sentinent beings.

Namaste

A movie recommend that can help you manifest is the secret...I have been doing these ideas for years so when this film aired I was glad to see it for its a tool for those whom need a push toward enlightening their personal lives.

NEVER A DULL MOMENT

2011-12-12T00:37:00.000-08:00

LIMO STEER

Artist: Rob Buchholz
and his crew get stranded at my place during a snow storm en route to NY.
Installing his nest piece from Burning Man 2009 where I met him one dusty day.
Lets say we had a few spa days...not a bad way to hang.

Seriously we had to do the dishes in one of the tubs while I was re plumbing the farm sink. Rob volunteered to shower and clean at the same time....Our funny life full of joy.

Like a Japanese painting I see this as shapes instead of dirty dishes

Father and son James/Aaron helping me rework the farm kitchen

I was wanting a Viking of Wolfe stove/oven when this Wedge Wood found its way into my home.
A super find and were cookin up a storm here this winter.

Soup by Eleanor Preger this weeks workshop student from Incline Lake Tahoe

Thanks to Photography

I meet so many people on the road and while your planning some big life...LIFE is actually happening to me all the time with shifts and shakes...when you think you have nailed it ...don't sit down for too long.....something will nudge your world ...always for the better I say.
What plan....I have none. Controlling one's life is boring....for some it works well...same job, same partner, same old stuff all the time...That has never been my world.... I always thought my life as an artist would be so different ...that drive that makes you produce easily,,,with a passion and hunger for the creation at a days end....
Actions are what count....energy moved to make things happen.
Wait for no one or you will loose your Spirit.
An artist heart must manifest things all the time.
Mingling and meeting people is one of my favorite things to do.
Doors open all the time when your intent is good.
Never a dull moment being a photographer in the world.
Today...North bound to meet an artist and a foundry owner.
Its always an adventure when you focus on the positive.
Your glass will be more than full.
God Speed

Never A Brown NOSE

2011-12-03T13:54:00.001-08:00

Drive by shooting, one shot after branding my cattle.
Feliz Navidad

Four Questions of Value in Life

2011-12-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

Johnny Depp says it best in
Don Juan DeMarco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoJUCuNewRs&feature=share
(cut and paste if link is not clickin)

INTERMISSION

2011-12-02T07:22:00.000-08:00

WOMEN S RIGHTS ROCK ON LADIES

2011-12-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

Unbelievable!! Today, President Karzai granted clemency to Gulnaz! It's all over CNN and BBC-- WE DID IT!! 93000 people signed the petition to ask the President to reconsider the policy of incarcerating women for "moral crimes" and he did! Gulnaz is no longer in jail for refusing to marry her rapist! Now, we only have 842 and 1130 children left to free from this injustice--and we can do it!!
Thank you to all who have supported efforts of Afghan Women's Justice Project over the past year. You have changed history!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHAN_WOMAN_PARDONED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Mercury Retrograde: Astrology on the Web

2011-11-29T23:57:00.000-08:00

Mercury Retrograde: Astrology on the Web

P A Y A T T E N T I O N
the devil is in the details
An interesting read to ponder as the world turns

The Fountain of Youth

2011-11-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

PHOTOGRAPHER A LONG LIVED PROFESSION

A photographers life is all suspect to the adventures that trickle in their lives daily! The phone rings and a job is on the table.

l. Can you go to Camden Maine, Greece, swim with dolphins, cruise to the islands....
2. Want to shoot Muhammad Alie, child prostitutes, homeless folk, twins, you name it?
3. Here's a huge ad Campaign can you handle it, Master Card, Allegra, button up and hang loose?
4. How about photographing all the elder surfers for Surfing for Life for the NY Times Magazine
Go on a week to HI for a surf story? Who wouldn't even if it did drown my gear at least my assistant survived that wave. (the list is endless and abundant)

One day your meeting scientist like Lynn Margulis and the next John Glenn, the Neville Brothers, whistle blowers,and design greats like Tibor Kalman and Phillip Stark. Children riddled with disease yet a smile on their face, soldiers heading to war along side family members or Julia Child's with a giant cooking whip.....one of those shots I wish she were wearing latex....but what memories and adventures into the lives of hundreds of interesting people. My list is ridiculously long and it continues still. Why wouldn't a photographer want to keep going on and on in their life career. A dream job that has benifit my family and friends all the time.
I love strangers, the stories behind the people. Rarely do I find anyone boring.
Boring to me is doing the same thing over and over to the point of insanity.
Your point of view must change all the time....360 degrees of view as my friend Sarah Davidson has said many a time....walk around it , get away from it and take a break from it to see a-fresh.
If you do what you've always done you will get what you've always got. If that works for you and some it does work...those who specialize in one type of light or way of seeing can bank on it. For me I need invention and energy to see anew, to co create for clients and my self with others. It's in this, that the adventure can come forth in true form. Here is where ones vision can be fresh instead of stagnant.

I live on a farm....I lived in NYC for 16 years....talk about abundance! That city is rich with a plethora of experiences to be had by all....Art and love and creative essence shared. I can't believe that I lived with in NYC for so long....absorbing all the information overload that cities have to offer. I found all the good stuff and I saw plenty less easy on the eyes and heart, however...always learning and applying for the that is my nature. If you seek the bad maybe you are just into negative energy....If you see the light...than God Speed. Creating isn't destroying. For me, creation flows not un-like a river. When its stuck we have to un-dam it to let it meander down at its own pace, or leave it in peace to stew and become any of many points of view...you choose. Well wishes always for the cycle of water is to evaporate and refill our mountains and streams...were all just a part of something bigger so make that time here full of love and laughter and real feelings...all feelings are good...just choose the ones that create health and wellness. Clinging on to what isn't working just becomes stale and old and boring. If your life is such than only you are truly to accountable...but that is key most are not accountable for there part in creating their conundrum's. I can't blame anyone nor do I want to for my life experiences good and bad I choose to find clarity and art and love in my personal fountain, hence this is many artist life styles....the youth is given back for daring to live beyond social barriers and status quo. For this I send love to all those whom suffer. I wish for safe passage to a health and happiness.
Now on a farm my senses are more attune to every sound, smell, taste and season , more than most and in an unusual way. Its sort of a poetic blessing and curse. A doctor friend of mine as repeatedly labeled me earth momma. Its true every sensation is felt to my core.
It's the feelings that make me aware that my life is more about messaging ....I get side tracked on other peoples projects....love and matters of the heart but always I have found a sanctuary of artful abundance in my work.

Two emotions rule human actions...Fear or Love. Which one do you operate on for your life? I have always surrendered to love. Its not always the right path but it is huge with imperfection and lessons to create a better path for living fully.

"It's all good when you choose to allow the truth of your life to exist."

We are just animals and biologically at best. Hopeless accounts of desiring love, usually the Universe gives us opportunity for lessons to learn.....never boring but at times grueling.
I wouldn' t trade a day of the love that has occurred in my life. I have been blessed with the best lessons of love. Sacred are the Souls of others and when they one day awaken to your soul as sacred the lessons are learned and mirrored.

We stumble along the path and make new friends and always when your Spirit is bright the others whom see it ....attach to what they so need and want....Protect yourselves and give accordingly but don't loose your essence for a drowning souls need to be saved. You will sink and so will your art. Your heart and the energy brought forth must be cycled for that is real.
Find the good and clarity comes in clean water. Clarity is in the calm of being true to your self.
To show up for yourself. In your heart, your art and your life. One week left how do you want to spend it and who and where to do you want to have that life? For me I see a circle and a fire of love and life with all my family and friends....in water we surf, on land we love and eat and in private I love the lover who can surf a real wave of life and have my back with grace and ease of a warrior.

My fountain of youth is working as a photographer/ artist meeting people and wandering the world. This feeds my soul with love and gratitude in which I fully give back to all that are in my inner circle and those whom I break bread.

Hang Ten Namaste

The Four Agreements

2011-11-28T19:18:00.000-08:00

Another One for the Library

The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz

Amber-Allen Publishing, San Rafael, CA (1997).

The Four Agreements can be summed up as follows:

(1) Be Impeccable With Your Word. The broad scope of this concept is to avoid sin against yourself by what you think. Sinning against the self takes many forms: such as, putting yourself down, gossiping, or putting anybody else down because you don't agree with what they think. Actions and words need to be consistent as part of being impeccable with yourself. The other side of the coin is the smoky mirror concept. Ruiz makes the point that our perceptions of others are merely reflections of ourselves. Therefore, to put another down or project negative words or energy towards another person, is to lash out at the other person because of our own insecurities.

(2) Don't Take Anything Personally. There is an awful lot of negative energy out there and some of it is directed at us by other people. If you take it personally and take on the poison of another's words, it becomes a very negative agreement you have with yourself. What anybody thinks about you, or says about you, is really about them. Not taking it personally allows you to be in relationship with anyone and not get trapped in their stuff. This agreement can also pertain to things that we take personally that cause us to go into upset.

(3) Don't Make Assumptions. What we think we understand about what someone says, how someone looks at us, what someone means by what they do, etc, may often not reflect reality at all, and more often than not lead us to think badly of ourselves or of others, and reinforce not being impeccable with our word.

(4) Always Do Your Best. Your "best" is a variable thing from moment to moment. "When you do your best, you don't give the Judge the opportunity to find you guilty or to blame you.� You can always say, �I did my best." There are no regrets. (p.80) The other key to doing your best revolves about being in action. "Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action. You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward." (p.82)

2011-11-25T09:09:00.001-08:00

“Make the most of yourself, because that’s all there is of you.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

National Portrait Gallery

2011-11-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

David M Kennedy and Nicholas Herrera

I AM INSPIRED

Two of my favorite artist pals slipped out of New Mexico to present many of Davids images to the curator of this establishment. I am so proud of him as my friend first. He grumbles with life and love issues like many of us and still like the turtle he will win the race.
He's work is breath taking. When the going gets rough I look to him and see inspiration.
He is steady moving toward what matters.
One minute you think its love and the next its the lesson and than the artist in his own way translates life observations in space, time and light onto papers that you want to dive into and swim with the image that is resonating with your heart.
David has spent many years working in America, documenting Indian dances and celebs and just plain ole country folk. Always authentic and down to earth.
He is my brother Spirit and dear friend ....he draws a line in the sand for me all the time
This side loves you and this side is bullshit.
Always he is right.
I don't always listen but when I see his processes for his art it all makes sense to me.
I realize my work is not in my personal life but in my messages in art.
I have to exercise all my gifts and make a difference.
David at the portrait gallery this Thanksgiving is my inspiration for my art to manifest.
To move my energy and stay clear of those whom don't care or value my passage in this lifetime.
Artist need patrons often unless they are trust funder's.
Help your friends and the love that comes back to you in art is beyond a bank of bills that can't love you. Help our artist friends this year...pick one and support some aspect of their work.
Buy a print. When is the last time you supported an artist pal, by purchasing a print?
Step up if you can.

I am inspired and I think I will do that next time I see David.

Hasta

Women of Influence

2011-11-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

Women of Influence

Deadline: December 03, 2011

Submit Nomination

The New Mexico Business Weekly is seeking nominations of New Mexico's most dynamic women for our 2012 Women of Influence publication. We're looking for leaders in the state's industries and organizations. A candidate may be of any age or professional background, as long as she stands out as a model for her peers and is leaving a lasting and positive mark on New Mexico.

Nominees will be evaluated on their professional achievements, contributions to the community and leadership skills. The Business Weekly assembles a panel of community leaders to judge the awards.

Please note that we've changed our nomination process for 2012. To nominate someone, you need only fill out the information on the form below. The Business Weekly will notify the person that they've been nominated and ask them to fill out a form with information about themselves in order to be considered for the award. Nominees will be judged on submitted nomination materials alone. Those selected as honorees will be celebrated at an event and in a Business Weekly special publication in February.

Previous Women of Influence honorees are not eligible.

Deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. Dec. 2, 2011.

For more information, contact Associate Editor Rachel Sams at (505) 348-8322 or rsams@bizjournals.com.

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/nomination/8231#submit

The JOY IN MY LIFE

2011-11-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.joyharjo.com

A Question

—Preface or Introduction to She Had Some Horses WW Norton Edition December 2008

"What do the horses mean is the question I’ve been asked most since the first publication of the book She Had Some Horses in 1984.

I usually say, “it’s not the poet’s work to reduce the poem from poetry to logic sense”. Or “it’s not about what the poem means, it’s “how” the poem means.” Then I ask: “So what do the horses mean to you?”

Like most poets, I don’t really know what my poems or the stuff of my poetry means exactly. That’s not the point. It never was the point. I am aware of stepping into a force field or dream field of language, of sound. Each journey is different, just as the ocean or the sky is never the same from one day to another. I am engaged by the music, by the deep. And I go until the poem and I find each other. Sometimes I go by horseback.

No, that’s not it at all.

The horses are horses. My father’s side of the family is inextricably linked with horses. We aren’t a Plains horse culture, though we came to know horses. I understand there was some exchange of power between the horse people and my relatives from seven generations or more back. I am the seventh generation from Monahwee (sometimes spelled as “Menawa”) who is still a beloved person to the Mvskoke people, my tribal nation. I was told how he had a way with horses. He could speak with them. And he also knew how to bend time. He could leave for a destination by horseback at the same time as his cohorts, then, arrive at his destination long before it was physically possible to arrive. He had a little black dog that followed him everywhere.

My cousin Donna Jo Harjo was a champion barrel racer, and knew how to speak with horses. She had to live close to horses, or not live at all. They were her people as much as any of the rest of us.

And there was the horse who came to see me once in the middle of a long drive north from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Albuquerque. I perceived him first by an ancient and familiar smell. Then I was broken open by memory when he nudged me, in that space that is always around and through us, a space not defined or bound by linear time or perception. He brought the spirit of the collection of poems that was to become She Had Some Horses.

Later was my horse Casey. The last time I ever drank too much was in a “proletariat bar” in Krakow, Poland because I was happy to meet and play music with some Bolivian Indian musicians and a Hawaiian, and we were all so far from home. In the grey of the early morning, when I was whirling around sick in my hotel room, my horse Casey came to me with a worried look. He was concerned because his last “owner” had died of complications from alcoholism. I assured him that this would not happen between us. And it didn’t.

Horses, like the rest of us can transform and be transformed. A horse could be a streak of sunrise, a body of sand, a moment of ecstasy. A horse could be all of this at the same time. Or a horse might be nothing at all, but the imagination of the wind. Or a herd of horses galloping from one song to the next could become a book of poetry.

I follow in the tracks of gratitude. I thank the horses, my ancestors who loved them, and those who grew to love their cars and trucks instead. I thank my mother and her family. They are the ones who brought me songwriting, guitar players and singing. I thank Simon Ortiz for singing original and old horse songs. I thank the shaman/healer I saw perform a poem and become what he was singing. It was then I began to comprehend the true power of the word: the dangers, the beauty and all the healing elements. This was when I began to write poetry. I thank those who continue to believe in the horses, in poetry."

What a journey.

Joy Harjo May 28, 2008 Honolulu, HI

BRAGGING RIGHTS

2011-11-11T09:43:00.001-08:00

http://www.susangoldmanphoto.com/

MY BEST FRIEND

While getting my photography education at Art Center School of Design I was introduced to Susan Goldman, an upper term photographer embracing still life. She wasn't the ordinary shooter, she was brilliant with her mindful ways. Concepting shots came easy to her and I found her work intriguing as it was always sort of WOW and mysterious in the same breath.
Still she gets me every time I ponder on her website....years of experience that no new be can have for she is so finessed in her skills and point of view that moving some item just a hair this way or that can make a nuance of feeling for the view more hungry or craving just more.
Susan Goldman is not just one of my best friends, she is living her life artfully and daily inspires me by everything she is and has become. For me its not a tribute but a deeply heart felt love and adoration I have for my friend, an artist , Goddess and one of the most beautiful souls I know.
She has been my shoulder, my sage, my rock as a gal pal.
We seldom see each other the past few years but I feel her presence in my heart daily.
I miss her and am grateful for her love.
There is nothing boring or stale about my friend.
Always an adventure she moves with grace in this lifetime, gentle and her vision is precise to the point with soft and silken eyes....Everything feels cozy and pretty and makes me smile.
I love this woman with all my soul and she is the bomb in Epicurean Capture.
Check her out. Better yet hire her.

http://www.susangoldmanphoto.com/

SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

2011-11-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

A Favorite Custom
Oil on canvas, 1909 17 5/8 x 26 inches (45 x 66.1 cm) Tate Gallery, London

Spring
Oil on canvas, 1894 70 1/2 x 31 3/8 inches (179.1 x 80 cm) J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

SHIRLEY BURDEN MENTOR, FOUNDER OF APERTURE

A warm fall day and a tour bus pulls up to the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena California. My class of maybe 15 students board to go to Santa Barbara for a museum tour and the first stop was the Getty Museum. Shirley Burden was my teacher and a generous patron of the arts.
A true philanthropist.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0120934/bio
I was probably about 22 years of age and while viewing the exhibits at the Getty I found my self in a trance in front of this painting called Springtime.
It grabbed my soul and I felt the light and intensity of every painted stroke as if it were alive like cinema before my eyes.I fell in love.
This was the first of several images that have inspired love in my life.
I purchased a poster that hung pretty much on all my walls as a student and Park Ranger doing my tour of duty. I don't know exactly where this image stopped being present in my home however, one day I will return to feel the essence again at the Getty in Malibu CA.
The actual painting is breath taking like a Thomas Hart Benton even thou smaller in size.
The details are mesmerizing. A must see.
I believe Allen Funt of Candid Camera purchased most of Alma Tadema s works over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Funt
A fact that I always found of interest for such a light hearted man to collect this seriously huge body of work by Alma-Tadema
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema
As an artist for those seeking inspiration I think you have to follow your intuition and just stop and feel. Let nature and images just talk to you ...sit with life and allow your imagination to think about how it came to be.
Once in France at the Picasso Museum in Antibes.
This museum houses one of the world's greatest Picasso collections: 24 paintings, 44 drawings, 32 lithographs, 11 oils on paper, 80 pieces of ceramics, 2 sculptures and 5 tapestries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema
I felt a sculpture and it was so energizing to thing his hands made that exact piece of art and everyone could embrace it unguarded.
What a privileged society we live in as Americans

ON THE FENCE

2011-11-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

by Gil Elvgren 1959

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Elvgren

by Alberto Vargas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Vargas

How to Take Great Portraits | Portrait Photographer's Tips for Taking Great Portraits

2011-11-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

How to Take Great Portraits | Portrait Photographer's Tips for Taking Great Portraits

NEW MEXICO BASED PHOTOGRAPHER

2011-10-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

New Mexico is bordered by AZ, CO, TX OK
a few hours flight to anywhere in the USA makes New Mexico a great location base.
We have pretty great weather year round and the cost of doing business here is half that of any major city.

Elouise Cobell - RIP

2011-10-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

photography by karen kuehn

Elouise Cobell's Accounting Coup

A profile of the late Blackfeet woman who successfully sued the federal government for billions on behalf of ripped-off Native Americans.

—By Julia Whitty

Elouise Cobell died on October 16, 2011, at the age of 65. This profile was written as she was 9 years into her 16-year legal quest, which eventually won $3.4 billion for a half-million Native Americans—the largest settlement in US history.

ALONG HIGHWAY 89, south of the Two Medicine River on the slope of Glacier National Park, at a place Elouise Pepion Cobell passes every day on her way from her ranch to her office in Browning, stands a historical marker erected by the state of Montana:

OLD AGENCY: The Starvation Winter of 1883-1884 took the lives of about 500 Blackfeet Indians who had been camping in the vicinity of Old Agency. This tragic event was the result of an inadequate supply of government rations during an exceptionally hard winter.
The story of that winter that came down to Cobell from her parents and grandparents is a darker one: of Indians effectively imprisoned by what locals called the Indian Agency (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs or BIA) on land that had been emptied of the bison and pronghorn that had been their staples, and with their promised government provisions lost to pervasive corruption. "All the Blackfeet know," says Cobell, "that the Agency man was black-marketing the Indians' rations, and that the reservation was enclosed in barbed wire."

map by Dave Stevenson

In the winter of 1883, as the cattle of white settlers grazed illegally on Indian lands, the Blackfeet began to die of starvation and a streptococcal epidemic. In the spring, they ate their last government-provided seed potatoes; by June they were stripping cottonwood trees to chew the inner bark; and by the time BIA officials in Washington, D.C., finally responded with extra rations, a Blackfeet man called Almost-A-Dog was said to have cut 555 notches in a willow stick, one for every Indian who had died—one in every four Blackfeet in the state of Montana.

Just west of the Old Agency historical marker, in what is now the Blackfeet Nation, lies an unmarked, wind-scoured rise of hills the Indians call Ghost Ridge, where the dead from the Starvation Winter, which actually lasted 18 unrelenting months, were buried in mass graves. When Cobell was a child, an uncle lived nearby, and every time they visited him, her parents repeated the story of Ghost Ridge. Cobell says it's those dead who give her the courage to fight on. "Fighting for them," she says. "Fighting the same government that tried to get rid of this entire race of people."

HER FIGHT TAKES THE FORM of Cobell v. Norton, a federal lawsuit on behalf of a half-million Indians across America whose individual property is held in trust by the Department of the Interior, which oversees the BIA. Interior leases these private Indian lands to oil, timber, and agricultural corporations and other commercial entities, then pays the Indians the revenues those leases yield. But Cobell claims the government has been grossly negligent in its 118 years of managing the Individual Indian Trust, treating the Indians not as clients and beneficiaries but as easy marks.

While generations of non-Indians have become rich harvesting the abundant resources of private Indian lands—which once included virtually all the oil fields of Oklahoma—Indian landowners have been paid only erratically, and far less than their due. Consequently, even landowning Indians remain among the nation's poorest citizens, joining the 23 percent of Indians in America living in poverty, and the nearly 40 percent who are unemployed. Some tribes fare even worse, and the Blackfeet suffer a 34 percent poverty rate and a 70 percent unemployment rate. Overall, Indians are more than twice as poor as the average American.

Cobell filed her lawsuit in 1996 after years of kinder entreaties failed, demanding payment of all unpaid revenues from Indian leases for the past century, a tally of past revenues, and a new accounting system to deal with future revenues. According to Cobell's forensic accountants, the government owes $176 billion to individual Indian landowners, averaging $352,000 per plaintiff, making this monetarily the largest class-action lawsuit ever launched.

If successful, Cobell's lawsuit may force a historical shift of America's capital away from the cowboys—the oil, gas, timber, mining, grazing, and agriculture industries, along with their political cohorts—toward the Indians. Furthermore, there's a nearly identical case waiting in the wings regarding Tribal Trust lands, also managed by Interior. Not surprisingly, the Clinton and Bush administrations have flexed unprecedented bureaucratic muscle to delay the resolution of Cobell v. Norton, spending hundreds of millions of dollars defending Interior.

In court, Interior is backed by the formidable resources of the Department of Justice, along with 35 of the country's most expensive private law firms. Cobell, meanwhile, rents a modest four-room office in Browning and has funded her legal challenge with $11 million in grant money. Small, soft-voiced, and an energetic 59 years old—she refers to herself as "kind of hyper" even six weeks after undergoing surgery to donate a kidney to her husband—Cobell seems an unlikely crusader. But she is the great-granddaughter of Mountain Chief, part of a pantheon of legendary Blackfeet warriors who battled the U.S. government as far back as its original real estate emissaries, Lewis and Clark.

To those concerned that the United States can't afford a Cobell v. Norton settlement, she says, "It's not your money and never was."

WHILE GHOST RIDGE is Cobell's personal inspiration, the historical heart of Cobell v. Norton beats in the Dawes Act—a 19th-century legislative attempt to solve what President Chester A. Arthur called "the Indian problem." Simply put, Western pioneers wanted Indian lands, while liberal Easterners (mostly out of sight of any Indians) wanted the Indians to be happy. The act's author, Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, felt the solution for the Indian lay in a Puritan work ethic: "Put him on his own land, furnish him with a little habitation, with a plow, and a rake, and show him how to go to work to use them…The only way is to lead him out into the sunshine, and tell him what the sunshine is for, and what the rain comes for, and when to put his seed in the ground."

The Dawes Act was signed into law in 1887, three years after the Blackfeet were buried atop Ghost Ridge. Also known as the General Allotment Act, Dawes mandated that most reservation lands be broken into individual parcels in the hope that dissolving communal ownership would dissolve the power of the tribes—considered counterproductive to Indian assimilation. Thus, BIA agents surveyed the reservations, typically allotting families 160 acres, and single adults 80 acres. The "surplus" lands—two-thirds of the area in question—were put up for sale.

From the Indians' point of view, Senator Dawes' experiment in social engineering was a mockery. Not only did the government fail to furnish the Indian with a plow when it gave him his allotment, it typically splintered those allotments into unmanageable islands (30 acres of timberland here, 50 acres of farmland 100 miles away), more or less guaranteeing that no Indian could work the disjointed parcels. Consequently, the government took legal title of the allotments and began to lease the land to settlers and, later, corporations. It pledged to collect the revenues and disburse them to the Indian landowners.

But from the beginning, Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado foretold that "the real aim of [the Dawes Act] is to get at the Indian's land and open it up for settlement." And in fact as soon as allotment began, Indian-owned acreage began to vanish. Twelve percent disappeared the first year. By 1920, the 136 million acres held by Indians when the Dawes Act was signed into law had shrunk to 72 million acres—17 million of which were leased to white settlers. Today some 46 million acres remain in the Tribal Trust, and 10 million in the Individ-ual Indian Trust. The rest disappeared at a rate of 1.5 million acres a year.

THE BLACKFEET NATION lies on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park, under the ice and limestone fortress of the Rockies. These 1.5 million acres mark the last citadel of a tribe that once controlled most of Montana. Yet as beautiful as the land is, the Blackfeet feel isolated and marginalized here—120 miles from Great Falls, an airport, a medical facility of any size, a college or university, or a competitive (cheap) shopping environment. People in need of nearly anything have to drive a long way, weather permitting.

Even on a relatively warm February afternoon the climate of the high prairie feels ominous. The skies lower unpredictably. The roads mask black ice. The wind dropping off the scarp of the Rockies blasts through Browning, and the town groans like a wooden ship in a storm at sea. Sometimes it blows at 90 miles an hour, downing signs and billboards and blowing freight trains off the tracks. Before they lost their land, the Blackfeet wintered down by Yellowstone, among its sheltered forests and warm waters, where the bison spent the cold months. "We weren't crazy," Cobell says.

"Crazy" and "dumb" are two words Indians hear a lot. At age 18, when Cobell started asking the BIA for an accounting of her Individual Indian Monies, officials told her she wasn't "capable" of understanding the accounting. "If someone tells me something can't be done, I get so mad I just have to do it," she says.

So Cobell became an accountant. Twelve years later, in 1976, she was appointed treasurer of the Blackfeet Nation. The job gave her the opportunity to hear the Blackfeet's concerns about their trust monies. Some years her fellow landowners got their checks, some years they didn't. They never received an accounting, and most (including Cobell) didn't even know, and couldn't find out, which lands exactly were theirs. Worse, some had once received payments but now no longer did, and they had no idea why. No one dared confront the BIA.

One Blackfeet Cobell heard from was Jim Little Bull, now 82 years old and living in a tiny, nearly unfurnished home in Browning heated with an ancient woodstove. When his mother, Mary Little Bull, passed away years ago, the government taxed her estate $7,000 for the operation and management of an irrigation system on her allotment. The problem was, although the land had been scored with ditches years before, no irrigation equipment had ever been installed, and no water other than rainfall had ever graced it. But Jim Little Bull was afraid to ask questions, worried his own Individual Indian Monies (IIM) would be withheld to pay his mother's bill. So he forfeited her land back to the government.

His story was hardly unique, and visiting one impoverished family after another, Cobell couldn't help but notice the oil wells pumping on Blackfeet land, the thousands of heads of cattle, the rippling fields of alfalfa. The non-Indian tenants who worked these lands were living in nice houses, driving new cars, while their Blackfeet landlords were living in cold, leaky government housing, largely unemployed and undereducated. "Why couldn't an Indian—a landholding Indian at that," wondered Cobell, "get a mortgage or a bank loan to start his or her own life?"

In 1983, after the government shut down the only bank on the reservation, Cobell got the idea of founding an Indian-owned bank. Told it would never work, she went back to school, became a banker, and, in 1987, threw open the doors of the Blackfeet National Bank, the first national bank located on a reservation, and the first owned by an Indian tribe. Within 15 years it had grown into the Native American Bank, with 23 tribes from across the country investing as much as $1 million apiece to participate in it.

All the while, Cobell was looking into the government's handling of the Indian trusts. The more she investigated, the more she became convinced that the amount owed to Indian beneficiaries, both tribal and individual, was substantial, potentially enormous. Collaborating with accountants from three other tribes, she untangled a messy history of Indian trust monies dumped in the U.S. Treasury's general fund, where they could be used for the latest weapons system or for bailing out the Savings and Loan industry. "One administration after another treated the trusts as slush funds," she says. "It didn't matter to them that it was Indians' money."

Certain these findings would shake the system open, Cobell began to approach lawmakers and others in government. In 1996, she had an impromptu face-to-face with Attorney General Janet Reno, who listened attentively, then asked Cobell to write a letter. "Another letter," Cobell says.

Instead, she contacted Dennis Gingold, a prominent banking attorney she had met four years earlier at a meeting called by a sympathetic official of the federal Office of Management and Budget. Although Gingold had thought they were convening to discuss the banking and finances of Americans from India—"I'm from New Jersey," he quips, "I've never even heard of Native Americans"—when he heard Cobell's story, he turned to the government officials in the room and said: "I can't believe you guys haven't been sued."

"I'm going to keep my eye on that guy," Cobell thought. Four months after the Reno snub, Dennis Gingold filed what was initially called Cobell v. Babbitt in U.S. District Court.

ONE OF COBELL V. NORTON'S unnamed plaintiffs is James Mad Dog Kennerly, a man who should be a prosperous Montanan. One of his hereditary allotments includes as many as five working oil wells. Yet from these he receives a government-issued royalty check for roughly $30 a month, and he lives in a house smaller than a modern walk-in closet.

The drive to his oil-producing property at the eastern edge of the Blackfeet Nation passes through two worlds: Browning's bleak government housing, followed by miles of prosperous farmland. "That's my land, right here," says Kennerly. He points to another of his allotments—leased not to an oil company but to a Hutterite farming colony, an Amishlike community that, ironically, works property communally. These farms are large and seemingly prosperous, with huge barns and well-tended fields. Kennerly complains that Interior—which manages one-fifth of all land in the country—leases his lands for far less than the going rate.

Mad Dog Kennerly's fight against the government began in a government-run orphanage for Indians, led through the Indian occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, and is focused now on getting paid what he feels he's owed. His battle colors include embroidered bald eagles and American flags adorning his leather jacket and baseball cap. When asked what he would have done if he'd had access to the money he believes was his all these years, he fires back without a moment's hesitation."I'd have gone to school and become a lawyer and fought the goddamned BIA."

At the center of Kennerly's fight is the effort to free himself from the paternal grasp of a government that has tried to make every decision for him since the moment of his birth. This is the struggle of all Indians, says Cobell—a battle personified by legendary athlete Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, who was forced to beg for his trust monies to fund his travel to the 1912 Olympics in Sweden. The government denied his request, although the BIA eventually gave him a whopping $25. Nevertheless, Thorpe brought home two gold medals to a cheering America.

This misbegotten paternalism continues to pervade the Indian trust saga. Keith Harper, one of Cobell's lawyers and a member of the Cherokee Nation, notes that Interior administers the Individual Trust like a welfare program. "There's an institutional reluctance to change from a boss to a servant," he says. "A trust officer is a servant." Early in the Cobell suit, the government contended that the Individual Indian Trust was not a trust at all, a contention it lost in court.

These days Interior likes to spin the Cobell suit as an attempt to seek reparation for all wrongs done to Indians. Interior spokesman Dan DuBray admits to a "sad and difficult history between this government and native peoples," but says the Cobell case is not about "Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee—it's about seeking an accounting." DuBray, a Rosebud Sioux and son of a BIA employee, contends that even if the plaintiffs win Cobell v. Norton, it won't make much difference in the lives of the majority of Individual Indian account holders. "In all the years my father opened his IIM mail he never said this isn't enough money," says DuBray. Instead he questioned, "Why is the government spending all this money on postage to send me an 8-cent check?"

Cobell counters that many of the payments Indians never received were "lost" in BIA pockets, even into the pockets of Indian employees of the BIA—who inherited a broken system and were promoted for going with the flow. "In the old days we called them the Fort Indians," Cobell says.

DuBray says the real problem is not the government's loss of Indian records or mismanagement of funds or its negligence as trustee but an issue most Indians "don't really understand": the issue of fractionated heirship. This is the heart of the case, he says—not that over the years the government has been paying out less money to the Indians, only that it has been splitting the money among an ever-growing number of Indian heirs. He cites his own case. DuBray and his brother will soon inherit 50 percent shares in their recently deceased father's Individual Indian Trust account. "His 8-cent check will be split between the two of us," DuBray laughs. He says even his own family members don't understand, and are hoping their "1/250th share will pay out big money if Cobell wins."

The plaintiffs contend the government can't be trusted when it says that 8 cents is all that's due. "How do we know it's only 8 cents?" asks Cobell. "Why not $8 or $8 million?" For Cobell and her lawyers, the heart of the case lies in the responsibilities dictated by trust law. The government is the trustee, and "if they can't show it," says Harper, "they owe it."

So far, the government hasn't been able to show much of anything. Although Interior maintains that trust records generated since the 1950s are mostly intact, plaintiffs contend that until a Treasury official testified to the practice in 1999, trust records were routinely destroyed after six and a half years. In any case, the Indians and the BIA disagree as to how much land is Indian land and how much money those lands have generated. The court must determine which version of history is correct—a task that has consumed more than nine years of taxpayer-funded court time.

The government claims it's cooperating. But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth strenuously disagrees. In the course of overseeing the lawsuit, this Reagan appointee has held two secretaries of Interior and one secretary of Treasury in contempt, has written scathing opinions on the government's destruction of evidence, and has periodically banned the entire Interior Department from access to the Internet for its failure to safeguard trust data. The BIA has been stranded offline for nearly four years (see "Interior Monologue"). "The entire record in this case tells the dreary story of Interior's degenerate tenure as Trustee-Delegate for the Indian trust," Lamberth recently ruled, "a story shot through with bureaucratic blunders, flubs, goofs and foul-ups, and peppered with scandals, deception, dirty tricks and outright villainy, the end of which is nowhere in sight."

In 1999, Lamberth concluded the lawsuit's first phase, finding the government in breach of its trust responsibilities. In consequence, he ordered court jurisdiction over the Individual Indian Trust for a minimum of five years, and mandated the government file quarterly reports detailing its efforts to reform the trust. He then ordered Interior to provide the Indians an accurate historical accounting dating back to 1887. "The plaintiffs should take great satisfaction in the stunning victory that they have achieved today," he concluded.

Yet more than five years later, James Mad Dog Kennerly is still receiving only $30 a month on his oil lease. And on this February day, driving the dirt roads to his allotment, he discovers the wells on his land, and on all the adjacent Indian lands, lying idle. Meanwhile, across the creek on non-Indian lands, they're genuflecting energetically to the four corners of the Interior-managed earth.

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR has responded to its ongoing losses in court with tactics the plaintiffs construe as retaliatory and intimidating. In 2004, after Judge Lamberth found the BIA was seizing land owned by Indian trustees without properly informing them of its value or location and selling it to oil companies, he ordered the agency to stop communicating with plaintiffs regarding the sale, conversion, and transfer of land. Interior reacted by shutting down BIA offices and phone lines, telling Indians they would not receive their royalty checks because of the lawsuit. Cobell's name was published on the BIA website—tacit encouragement, she says, for Indians to call and blame her. "It was the dumbest thing they could have done," she says. "I returned every one of those calls and explained what was really going on."

Among the Indians who filed affidavits about these BIA tactics was Verna St. Goddard, an elderly Blackfeet. She ran into problems when she visited the BIA office in Browning last February. For more than 35 years St. Goddard has withdrawn funds for the developmentally disabled Roseline Spotted Eagle, her former foster child. But not this day. A BIA official ordered her to drive to Great Falls and ascertain the price of the goods she wanted to buy for Spotted Eagle, then drive back to the BIA office for a check, and then return to Great Falls to purchase the items and back again—480 miles altogether. (A perfect example, St. Goddard quips, of what the BIA really stands for: Bossing Indians Around.) When she asked the BIA official why he wouldn't give Spotted Eagle her money, as he has for years, he said it was because of the Elouise Cobell lawsuit.

Lamberth called these tactics "a testament to the startling inhumanity of government bureaucracy…[and] a deliberate, infantile, and frankly ridiculous misinterpretation of this Court's straightforward order." He added: "The idea that Interior would either instruct or allow BIA to withhold payments and then to stonewall the Indians who dared to ask why is an obscenity that harkens back to the darkest days of United States-Indian relations…The perniciousness and irresponsibility demonstrated by blaming the Court pales in comparison to the utter depravity and moral turpitude displayed by [Interior's] willingness to withhold needed finances from people struggling to survive and support families on subsistence incomes."

BIT BY BIT, piece by piece, the Department of the Interior is losing this case. But as with the Starvation Winter, government tactics are exacerbating the agony—in part by appealing every one of Judge Lamberth's rulings. Interior recently lost a challenge to Lamberth's right to adjudicate the case. The department also appealed and lost a key ruling entitling the plaintiffs to full compound interest on all unpaid Individual Indian Monies. Currently, Interior is at loggerheads over how—or if—the historical accounting dating back to 1887 can be accomplished.

In 2003, Congress inserted itself into the machinations by attaching midnight riders to omnibus budget and Iraq appropriation bills to delay the court-ordered historical accounting. It also attempted to cut the salary of court-appointed investigators, while permitting Secretary Gale Norton to use discretionary funds to pay for the scores of private attorneys hired by all past and present Interior employees appearing in the case.

In July, Judge Lamberth wrote: "For those harboring hope that the stories of murder, dispossession, forced marches, assimilationist policy programs, and other incidents of cultural genocide against the Indians are merely the echoes of a horrible, bigoted government past that has been sanitized by the good deeds of more recent history, this case serves as an appalling reminder of the evils that result when large numbers of the politically powerless are placed at the mercy of institutions engendered and controlled by a politically powerful few."

Cobell however is confident the Indians will eventually win. The government has no case and they know it, she says. "They can't provide the historical accounting because they've lost or destroyed too many records. Their only strategy now is to go slow and try to outlive us all." The plaintiffs are willing to settle but insist that, after more than a century of ongoing mismanagement, Interior needs to be removed as trustee, and the Individual Indian Trust put into receivership.

COBELL'S OFFICE, upstairs on a side street in Browning, is a cheery mess, littered with awards, treasures, books, and paintings—the disordered hallmarks of someone who spends more time at work than at home. From here, she orchestrates the many brainstorms that occupy a mind bent on improving life across Indian country.

Thanks to Cobell, Browning now has the feel of a ghost town regenerating its flesh and blood, 30 years after white business owners fled most reservations. Today the Blackfeet Nation hosts more than 200 enterprises, 80 percent of them Indian-owned, and most launched with loans from the banks Cobell helped start. Yet her ideas are wider ranging than banking. As founder and executive director of the Native American Community Development Corporation, Cobell initiated a recycling program on the reservation funded with an annual art auction in nearby Glacier National Park. She also facilitated the creation of the Blackfeet Land Trust—the first land trust administered by Indians—protecting 1,200 acres of unique fen vital to grizzlies, a species the Blackfeet revere. "We Indians were the original environmentalists," she says. "We need to get back to that."

Three years ago, the Blackfeet awarded her warrior status—a rare honor for a woman. In 1997, in recognition of her diverse talents, the MacArthur Foundation awarded her a "genius" grant. She jokes about having made the leap from "dumb Indian" to "genius" in one lifetime, and says she doesn't ever again want Indians taken advantage of because they don't understand banking and finance. Collaborating with tribal educator Roberta Kipp, Cobell founded a mini bank program in which Blackfeet kids in elementary school open bank accounts, play the roles of bankers and customers, and grow their money during their school years. They reap the windfall when they graduate. Cobell, herself a graduate of a one-room schoolhouse, insists, "I want these kids to understand the way the world works, and to question everything that comes before them." No more silence or fear. After 118 years, it's time to call in the debt.

Julia Whitty is the Environmental Correspondent for Mother Jones.

CHANNEL your FEELINGS into YOUR ART

2011-10-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

FEELINGS into ART

LOVE - Politics-Human Emotion ... channeling those feelings into making your art more meaningful can be a golden key to being a serious messenger.

Christopher Rowland

2011-10-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

photograph of Chris

An Artist Heart

I say this daily and live it. I could run around to events about art but than I'd never get anything done! Being in a relationship also can suck all the life out of your art if your not careful.
No one s fault but your own. Finding a balance for love and art are tricky but often I find my peers comments helpful inspiration to continue the sacred path of one's vision.
Chris is such a person, always emersed in creating and pondering life, nature, beauty and juggling his love of others with a need to tell a story or portray the people at hand.
A compass is a great tool, some of us have it and many do not.
I touched by his words and will continue to share the sweet sentiments of a blessed and grateful mans heart and being.

"When I walk into a dimly lit room and I turn on the light, I am attracted to the things illuminate by this light...If we can understand our presence here and love ourselves fully we began to shine our light on others...forgiveness of oneself and taking care to understand that we are a "Master Work" of art Divinely created in perfection, becomes in itself a portal of light. How can we truly love anyone if we cannot love ourselves, and see how magnificent we are created? FOCUS on your attributes. Light is a messenger. You are Light. Enjoy the process!"

paintings by Christopher Rowland copyright

"My life is my Art always a mission statement for me and goal.

Wake up and make things, share them and show up for yourself."
Sweeter is my life sharing it.

Walt Whitman

2011-10-09T10:57:00.001-07:00

Nominate Your Favorite Teacher in the Photographic Community

2011-10-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

SUBMISSIONS
Educators are asked to submit three letters of recommendation. Nomination serves as one recommendation. For more details on the guidelines and submission please visit http://www.visitcenter.org/competitions/overview/teaching_award_2011
Submission deadline: November 21, 2011

Please email Erin Azouz, programs@visitcenter.org, with your nomination, including the teacher’s email address.

LAURA PRESSLEY // EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ERIN AZOUZ // PROGRAMS & MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR
POST OFFICE BOX 2483 SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO 87504
TELEPHONE// 505.984.8353 WEBSITE// VISITCENTER.ORG

Branding

2011-10-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

BE WHO YOU ARE
(you don't have to try to be anything else but you)

My family brand I've adapted to my look for photography. I branded have branded my portfolios over the years with a variation of my dads cattle brand from Oregon. Its a very impressive piece of iron, not like the normal ones you see it has a sheath over the handle for comfort is such activities. City folks are use to buying deluxe cuts from shops like Dean & Deluca in NYC or farmers markets on the weekends and such. We grow our beef and I know what is put into them to sustain my family. It may sound off to those who have not witnessed raising cattle but or use and most country folks its not unusual. My cattle have a fine life, loving and fed well and to take them to a processing is not so outrageous if you consume meat and wear leather shoes and coats. Its very kind and simple. I won't get into details but by all means find the book

"Day in the Life of the American Woman"

I photographed a female butcher that enlightened me and my practices.
Once vegan; I have returned to modest portions of meat eating.
Its always easy to be a critic by I feel to live my life quietly and by example to my son has served us best. Animals on my farm are part of our family while they are with us and loved and treated with respect. They are honored in their passing with thanks and grace.
One day at a time.

Nice To Be Included

2011-10-04T18:37:00.001-07:00

2011-10-04T02:07:00.000-07:00

Native Philosophy

2011-09-28T22:04:00.001-07:00

When Our Blood is Split Is it Not the Same?
Blood is blood....it is the same.
We are all human, some with more privilege than others...
Entitlement is a rampant concept in America.
I have met the richest and poorest and when I meet someone humble with a pot a gold and he's wearing shredded clothing and could care less about status quo ....that is more real to me than those how hang in the clatche's of
Look at me I'm bitch en bullshit!
I know its good to mingle and work on projects that make a difference this I support but to alienate anyone due to their sexual orientation via adult preference is a bit odd to me.
First off do we need to know your straight or gay.
If you do a great job that is the point.
Prejudices are just that....and outer extension of a formed opinion that says.
I am of this mindset be it in favor or radically oppose!
And Choice in abortion is all about America having freedom.
Too bad adults don't better teach their children birth control options.
Rape is by far the worst for men and women both.
The nuance's of living can be subtle and self fulfilling for many.
Choosing healthy ideas and sticking to what is honest and feels good for you with some regard for others is key. We all human and drama can sink a ship in a second.
Participating in life is part of the journey.
No fairytale here..just real life stuff that is the lessons and path.
Its easy to be critical of others and to play victim be it gay, or straight or just plain old un-happy.
No one but ourselves can make us happy.
Don' t put your happiness in the hands of others.
You will inevitably miss out.
One day at a time....Eckart Tolle s book again I recommend.
Being present is better than hanging on negative concepts that are most likely your own.
Find the good and it will find you.
HBO aired a show about Gays in the military.
I shot a cover for NEWSWEEK of the a gay sailor and they used it in this show.
Naturally I missed the beginning but I did take a few snaps to share in favor of respecting humans right to choose their sexual preference.
As a journalist every day I work for an editor and magazine job its a gift.
I have learned so much about the world by entering the lives of strangers.

KEITH MEINHOLD had served 12 years in the Navy when he outed himself on ABC's World News Tonight on May 19, 1992, to fight the ban. Discharged, then reinstated by a court, he was the first openly gay man returned to active duty. The government chose not to appeal after losing at the Circuit Court level, and Meinhold served for four years as an out sailor before retiring with full military honors.

photography aired on HBO photographer unknown to me.

One World Many Ways.

Autographs Please . . .

2011-09-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

photograph sent to of Mark Yacovone with a photograph of MOJO NIXON I took in NYC

"Considering it’s been a life long dream to actually play with Mojo Nixon it was also quite a thrill to get my photo signed by both Karen and Mojo! I will never forget Mojo’s pep talk before the gig... “Ok guys, just remember... You couldn’t care less than I do right now”.

Thanks Karen!
MOJO and his blow up sheep ...bahhh by karen kuehn
Image of MOJO now provided by Mark Yacovone

Its interesting how we all change and morph into our elder shells.
One of the things I remember most about MOJO was that he married his wife on a go-cart track in CA wearing a chicken suit.
Pretty creative and cool.

Nice Notes

2011-09-23T12:35:00.001-07:00

"Several years ago I took my first photography workshop with you at Santa Fe. What you shared has stayed with me since that time. Although I've drifted in and out of photography, I've held on to some memories of that week. I came across your website and wanted to say "hello" and thanks again. You might remember me as the judge from Louisiana."

Blessings,

Doug Allen

It Takes A Team

2011-09-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

photo by Michelle Elloway

Johnny Dodd; Writer, Subjects unmentionable till story posts and Michelle Elloway camera left and dog Nixon

The Gentle Barn Story by Johnny Dodd and myself in California
Editor James Miller for People Magazine

W R I T E R
Johnny Dodd

A story can have many leads to fuel it's engine. A writer not unlike a detective gathers all the components and delivers or better yet births a tale.
A writer such as this one; Johnny Dodd gets an assignment from his editor one moment and than another he may bump into someone who is chatting about a random happening, that has the potential to make a difference or just entertain the reader.
A good writer is a curious soul driven by passion and hunger for more information.
Telling stories is like drinking from the fountain of youth, one always is learning and sharing.
It makes you want more and crave the adventure.
Being a writer is not unlike being a photographer.
The main difference is all the gear and insurances a shooter has to have to do their job well, and now including a solid computer system that is portable as well as the studio systems that most maintain to manage files and tech out imagery.
Writers have it made, a recorder, a pencil and an inquisitive mind.
Today I worked on a job with Johnny, he shows up we leave and he's in it thick with the story.
Due to be out in a few weeks.
Oh to travel light!
Seldom do the writers and photographers work together, however I've been assigned to
Johnny's stories twice now and its a super treat to be a fly in the room while a subject is getting interviewed.
Johnny's stories are featured regularly in People Magazine.
Today's story should go to press hopefully in the next two weeks.
Stay Tuned

HAIR & MAKE UP
Heather Wilson & Dori Randall

Another great addition to a shoot is the gals or guys that make a subject look better.
Were talking , no noise and ear hairs gentlemen, sometimes ladies, no shine, a good hair doo, maybe a cut. Both these gals were very helpful, not only hair and make up but grooming as well with clothing and style on sets.
Super nice to have the extra help on a magazine gig.
Not always the norm. I travel with a make up and grooming kit if I'm solo.

ASSISTANT
( I like to say Associate)
Michelle Elloway

For a photographer the one of the most important people on a shoot is often their assistant.
This person takes on all the gear, driving and lightens the load for the photographer.
I like to be relaxed at shoots, and having to worry about all the extra details takes me away from being as creative. For me I like to work with people who are not only technically sound but usually very versatile in style. If I go into the dregs of East La or a Prison setting and/ or the opposite I have to spruce up for a more opulent situation such as a White House Dinner, I need cto know that my associate can adapt and roll with the scenario.
You don't wear high heels in a boxing ring so to speak.
Michelle is a young photographer who is gaining experience by working with other photographers. I met her at the Santa Fe Workshops last summer and we have become friends.
Her husband is now my dentist and in return I am helping Michelle as much as I can to find her path as a photographer and gain confidence to do her own jobs.
We all help each other and that is how we can make a difference in our daily lives.
To all the assistants that have helped me in my career.
I love you all and send good vibes your way.

PEOPLE MAGAZINE SHOOT
Big Thank You 's Always to My Publisher; Time Inc
Photo Editor; Olga Comacho
Director of Photography; Chris Dougherty.
And the subjects that are not disclosed as of yet.

MAGAZINE WORK

2011-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have had to wear many hats in the field of photography and one such field is magazine work. Ofter and editor calls you and asks, "hey are you available tomorrow?" This week I am heading to Phoenix AZ on Thursday for one such job. My editor Olga Camacho has assigned me an interesting session with a man that has a health condition of which I can not mention. However it should be on the new stands by the end of the month. I love working and being creative on the spot and in editorial work it commands the photographer to be sharp in senses to go into a strangers home or a location to best tell a story about the subject. I will fly in and myself and an associate/assistant will head to a home where the subjects will be getting some light makeup and I will determine where and how to shoot images of a family, a father and how they are all dealing with his condition.

I feel privileged to work on magazine work that is journalistic in nature as it is up to me to bring back the best story I can for my editors and to also make certain that they have a variety of images not just one shot. Often I do the wardrobe selection and light make up and styling on these sorts of jobs however this one is going to be a bit more prepped so I can focus on seeing and feeling the situation out as I make images with this family.

Every day I travel out of home and go to locations for shoots its a gift, a new face, a new story and so much to learn. Magazine work pays less but pays a tone in Spirit. Magazines are a great place to get your feet wet as a new photographer. Make images for your local magazines and branch out into a more commercial venue when you feel relaxed enough to handle huge productions. Often you can award all the doings of a big shoot to a producer. I recommend utilizing a professional if your in over your head. Remember you want your mind freed up for making images for your client, solving image issues not catering, hair and make up, motor homes and such. I like having my hands off those workings and just keep focused on the art director or editors needs first and foremost. Keep it simple and make everyone comfortable doing images that are appropriate for the subject.

Style with Flair

2011-09-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

http://garosparo.com/bio.html

http://www.Screaming Queens Entertainment.com/strolling _tables

"UNLEASHED"

A personal favorite for events such as fund raisers...is the strolling table. Makes me want to hire GARO the designer to make me a and some friends a few for Burning Man...I can imagine sharing food with the burners off my table...or gifting swag that would be helpful. Also I imagine stolling with a camera as a camera table full of images and than subjects can sign model releases with ease....fantastic and with a birdie in my hair I'd definitely get some smiles. Click.

FORMS

2011-09-16T07:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.blinkbid.com

Look The Part - Be Professional

I am often asked what do charge? Charge as much as you can.
Intellectual property is priceless if you have a clue...an idea and are adding all your creative juices to a clients project. As an editorial photographer I have had free rein to be very creative all of my career. In advertising you get the privilege of working on others ideas usually for a much larger sum to bank. Being flexible is always best. Fees pend on usage, one year, two years, buy outs are of coarse more and editorial is much less. Negotiating is an art for sure and market places vary according to the economic climate.

For new bees who are just learning I want to recommend Blink Bid for forms and Asmp.org
Read PDN and American Photographer and don't under bid yourself. Easy to say but the best way to approach a client is to ask "What is your budget" ... does that include expenses? Figure out the production and ad a fee, don't forget taxes if in state...and you have to pay them and register a DBA; doing business as...

Good luck and don't give it away unless its a pro bono that makes sense to you.

New Mexico Based Photographer

2011-09-14T13:49:00.001-07:00

CHING CHING for Our Country

2011-09-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

A Prayer for ALL Sentient Beings

2011-09-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

by Sogyal Rinpoche

By the power and the truth of this practice,
may all beings have happiness,
and the causes of happiness.
May all be free from sorrow,
and the causes of sorrow.
May all never be separated
from the sacred happiness which is sorrow-less.
And may all live in equanimity,
without too much attachment
and too much aversion,
And live believing
in the equality of all that lives.

May all beings be filled with joy and peace.
May all beings everywhere,
The strong and the weak,
The great and the small,
The mean and the powerful,
The short and the long,
the subtle and the gross:
May all beings everywhere,
Seen and unseen,
Dwelling far off or nearby,
Being or waiting to become:
May all be filled with lasting joy.
Let no one deceive another,

Let no one anywhere despise another,
Let no one out of anger or resentment
Wish suffering on anyone at all.
Just as a mother with her own life
Protects her child, her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow
A boundless love for all creatures.

Let your love flow outward
through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

I Can Relate

2011-09-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

by Alfred Stieglitz

The Art of Looking at Images

When I teach I often encourage my students to go through all their magazines before they toss em to recycling. Take a gander quickly through each page....when they stop, rip it out!
To collect images that make them think or laugh, smile, tear up or just go oh!
To recognize the feeling and emotion of the image they gathered.
I feel images are better when they create a feeling with the viewers.
Doesn't matter what as long as you successfully identify with some feeling.
A good self assignment as an artist is to write a list of emotions and illustrate
the feeling as it is to you. Test out the art on your friends to see if your accurately communicating.
I like both of these images.
I identify with both women for one is sensual and full of wild possibility.
Snake and girl makes me smile with all her oddness and sense of style and demeanor as if she was walking a dog not a snake.
She is cool and getting her groove on.
For me the snake is a totem of transformation and its a new year for me with the Burning Man Temple burn and I am moving all my energy into art to express my gratitude for my gifts.
Abundance is back and Joan of Arc has my back.
No need for a diatribe.
Do you like it or not?
Why?
What does it make you feel?
Bottom line end of the day its how things make you feel not only other people but tune into art at large and your world can be expanded in the most playful honest way.
Volunteer to take children you know to the Museum's.
The last show I took a kid to was a Robert Rauschenberg show in Soho.
Children have an innocent unhindered point of view usually, seeing all kinds of things.
A child's eye can be most inspiring.
Thankful that my Spirit can ebbe and flow with basic ether.

photographer unknown

IN THE NOW IS IN THE KNOW

2011-09-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said:
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you".

"In other words:

"Freedom consists in finding the point of power, which is always in the present moment. It also means: how you respond to what happens is more important than what happens."
Eckhart.

In other words:

"No stories...just be of love and cling to nothing...ebb and flow with accepting the now...of what is! "

With Love karen

Burning Man Art

2011-08-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Art by Laura Kimpton and her crew, husband Jeff Schomberg.
Every year as of late they have been place one large message upon the playa.
This one makes sense to me.

TRUTH IS BEAUTY

2011-08-25T21:57:00.001-07:00

BURNING MAN & CAMERAS

2011-08-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

photo of Artist Dan Das Man and Photographer Artist Karen Kuehn by Ashly Bryce

For those of you who are intending photographing at Burning Man I've decided to pass on the helpful words of Will Chase's blog "Jack Rabbit Speaks" to you as it is really a matter of being a thoughtful shooter. Many people shoot and do stock and at this event it is not cool to do so and I think that is 100 percent the wrong reason to shoot at Burning Man. Its a private event. I have gone and shot and am in the midst of another project and about to embark on its creation and completion hopefully by late fall.
Please read and share with those who are going to be taking photographs at Burning Man this year 2012 . Be respectful of others privacy and shoot with a kind eye. Good Luck.
Compliments of Will Chase and Jack Rabbit Speaks.

*** NEW! NEW! GUIDELINES FOR PERSONAL CAMERAS - NO PERSONAL USE TAGS IN 2011 ***

Burning Man has created policies and agreements to enact a special zone for the use of cameras in Black Rock City. These policies are aimed at protecting participants' right to privacy and preventing the commodification of our event and we appreciate all our participants have done over the years to help protect this special zone.

We've continued our quest to keep updating these policies in keeping with the times, while maintaining our ability to protect Black Rock City and its inhabitants. While we've never required registration for personal still cameras, all Video Cameras for personal use must physically register for permission to shoot moving imagery in Black Rock City.

For many years this process has been achieved by filling out a Personal Use Agreement upon entry, stating intent to use imagery only for personal use (friends and family), and affixing an approval tag to the camera indicating this registration has been completed.

NEW INFO: Starting this year, these personal use video cameras will still fill out the permission form, but they will NOT RECEIVE TAGS.

Over the years as technology has evolved, the number, size, and type of personal cameras (and the ways we share imagery online) have transformed this legal landscape -- so much that placing actual tags on these types of cameras has become outmoded and even impractical (where to affix a tag on an iPhone, exactly?). Therefore, we have opted to keep the agreement but eliminate the tag.

The same legal net of protection is afforded for BRC by the terms and conditions (http://tickets2.burningman.com/info.php?i=2386) that *every* participant agrees to by their entry to the event. This prevent the use of ANY image for wide scale public distribution or commercial purposes without expressed written permission from Burning Man.

For video, we also enact the added protection of the Personal Use Agreement, which requires video camera users to state their intentions only to share for personal purposes, and to notify Burning Man before making any further uses.

We anticipate a period of adjustment as we all educate each other about this new method - we've become accustomed to watching out for tags on EVERY video camera, but now, the only tags present will be those on professional cameras. Please remember as you watch your fellow participants using cameras this year that NO personal cameras will carry camera tags - if someones shooting without a tag, it doesn't mean they haven't registered, and they're still required to get written permission to do anything with that footage beyond personal use.

Otherwise, only professional cameras will carry tags. Professional media also wear a laminate that identifies them as members of the press. Media Mecca, Playa Info, and the Civic Info Kiosks located around the city will have posters displaying the 2011 Media Tag looks like so you can identify when a camera aimed at you is tagged with professional credentials.

As stated in the Terms of Use, even if a camera user is shooting only to show their friends and family, they should still observe the right to privacy of their fellow participants, the same as we expect of the press and anyone else taking images in BRC. EVERY PARTICIPANT should be aware of the "Rights and Responsibilities for Media and Participants" at http://burningman.com/press/pressRandR.html, whether they'll be behind the camera or in front of it.

Also new for 2011: personal use imagery may be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike license, as outlined in the Terms and Conditions linked above - but *only* if your images do not contain nudity! As with all other camera use in BRC, you agree to ask permission and otherwise uphold your fellow participants' rights inside of Black Rock City. For more information on this license for 2011, see our Burning Blog post from January: http://blog.burningman.com/?p=10906&preview=true.

Finally, since with the loss of camera tags and Personal Use Agreement forms we are losing a potential avenue to identify lost camera owners, Retro from Community Services suggests that you take a shot of your contact info and leave the image on your camera or phone. This really helps with lost and found return efforts!

Career & Motherhood

2011-08-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

The Sun My H e a r t

Today I reflect on some of my turns in life.
The most important thing that I have accomplished is launching my one son Emmett with is father on board. Mind you we are not a couple for over 15 years now but we are best friends and co raising him under the same roof. All of us are very individual and separate and supportive of Emmett having a safe and loving environment to grow up and go out in the world as a healthy happy young man.
This week he went off to college and that was a bitter sweet moment for us.
He's very independent, has three jobs, working at a synagogue after classes, teaching guitar and drums on the weekends and doing yard work for a local elderly woman.
I think as parents we are so thankful for having this experience and Spirit in our lives.
Teenagers are tough and its been a constant to make boundaries and steer his ship onto some positive future. Its sort of like power steering at times....keeping a kid on track.
But alas as a parent you have to realize that they need to go, and you want them to succeed and be joyful and grateful and abundant with love to give and an up attitude so that one day he will contribute his voice in this world and possibly make a difference.
Emmett is majoring in physical therapy.
He can pick out Jimi Hendrix with great ease.
Mr Health Foodie & Epicurean Herbalist.

So....let me take you all back just a little bit....birthing to be exact!
I worked up until the last moment. I recall Michell McNally flying me for Fortune magazine first class as I was too plump for coach. Emmett was a big boy. As he arrived after a 24 hr labor I was delirious and I asked Shane if the last job was delivered to the New York Sunday Times magazine...still working...go figure!
Three weeks after our birth we went on the road for Bill Black to WY and CA doing two stories for Travel Holiday. We had Emmett on a cattle round up and in the fog of the Ave of the Redwoods run in Northern California, my homeland. The adventures had begun and a series of trips have always been part of Emmett's life as a son of a photographer.
He's been to Canada, Greece, Vie ques, and many other states for assignments I had been awarded. I also remember shooting a cover for the TIME magazine on breast cancer.
All the woman were related, a grandmother, daughters, grand daughters and new Born's.
While shooting all of them going through some very emotional experiences together I was nursing my son....I found myself in the midst of a very unusual situation.
The give and take of life, makes you think right?
I love my job and shooting stories keeps you fresh and open to those adventures.
Emmett has modeled for projects but that is not his thing for the most part.
Growing up in Manhattan was awesome however having grown up in CA camping, fishing, dirt biking I really wanted him to have those experiences. I was having the time of my life in NYC with my assignments, editors and art buyers. I loved my career.
Now a child in tow what was the best thing to do for him?
I moved to the country so he could have an earthy up bringing.
Pluses and minuses always...Was this a career move?
NOPE. It took my income down 2/3rd for sure but now I have a life, I am not in a car zooming here and there pleasing people, but rather I tend the farm, take random calls, work on art and have given our son all the opportunities I could without the constant buzz of an urban area.
NYC is amazing and it was terrific to raise him near Tompkins Square Park, we had a wonderful nanny Yvonne Sylvester, still very dear to our hearts. Dog walker Monet and amazing friendships and other very creative like minded parents. It was a privilege to have that time in our lives.
I have no regrets, I do miss the big money and plethora of job assignments that come from living in a creative hub however I grow my food, have beauty all around me and my son has a big smile on his face. He has left the nest and will return to do his laundry no doubt but now a new chapter for me and his dad.
Shane is moving to town and I am in go mode with getting books published and more assignments.
Seeking a farm hand and now is my time to concentrate on more art projects and love.
Here's a few snaps ... Enjoy

Burning Man 2010

Life on the farm feeding our steers.

Grandpa and Emmett at the Fender Museum CA

Emmett chillin summer 2010 with his Fro.

High School Band Competion

Emmett with Donald of ER

age 8 just moved to NM

Tioga Pass age 6 with mom near Mono Lake

Dirt biken at the Simons farm

Chip Thomas and the boys all blinking , No we don't shoot critters or leave trash at the river.
Very eco minded with the kids....The Rio Grande is in my backyard.

Emmett and his puppy Tank in NM

Emmett in the Lossada of NYC where we lived for his first 8 years.

Emmett and Shane painting the music studio.

http://www.rockshackmusic.com

Emmett Thank You for being a wonderful son and Shane thank you for not being a dead beat dad and a wonder example of a man in our lives. I wish both of you all the best as we all go on our separate paths and yet still manage to carry on a drama free family. Its been and incredible 19 years and more to come.
Next chapter to be determined. Love, laughter and living vital is my main goal. The present and physical world of creating is where it is at for this farmgirl/photographer.

GET YOUR ART HEAD ON

2011-08-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

"RE-IN-KARMA"
Vision by Sarah Plaia Davidson Artist
Master Welder James Snipes

Anyone can make "Art", doesn't mean its great or good or going to be validated by peers or any higher rung on the social ladder in the art community. However it is a special head space one feels while creating art, be it a mutant vehicle, a sculpture, painting, knitting, and photography amongst many mediums.
Their is this sensibility of loosing oneself in the creation of things, letting go of the daily grind for manifesting something special and beautiful. No value can be placed on finding your Mojo in making things, anything from gardening to cooking, to bending steel. The reward is in the feeling of being satisfied in your creation. Sharing what you have brought life to for others to enjoy or just having had a few hours of exploration in the materials at bay.
We can run around like chickens with our heads cut off or we can be still with our energy and turn chaos into rapture.
This art car is a great example of one of my friends channeling all her energy into a magnificent piece of mobile art for Burning Man. It took her six weeks to build with friend James Snipes, her body is broken a bit an stiff from its execution but yesterday all I could see is her deep satisfaction from a creation reflected in her eyes....A smile bigger than her face, both her and James and their patron Ana were on fire with this leg of Re-In-Karma s debut at the famed Burning Man on Black Rock Dry Lake.
Looking forward to the dust christening and docking.
So much fun and now the journey begins....
I can see her making more art in a larger scale for years to come.
Everything my pal makes turns to gold.
Artist have a different way of seeing thinking.

Out Of The Box.
Nurturing Creativity 24x7

Kudos & Happy Birthday Dr. Plaia

Maverick Camera book nominated for PDN People's Choice Award

2011-08-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

Maverick Camera is nominated for PDN Peoples Choice Awards. Vote for it at

Maverick Camera by Karen Kuehn | Make Your Own Book

Vote at
http://photographybooknow.blurb.com/peoples-choice/category/fine_art

BURNING MAN IMAGES

2011-08-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

DUE TO BEING HUMAN....

My project got delayed but will arrive soon for public viewing.

Working on Images of Burning Man, MORE TO COME.
( A link will be posted after I complete this project)
Working on it this summer to fulfill its completion.

The Importance of Reaching Out

2011-08-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

This morning I found this note in my spam files. Kevin was in the first workshop I taught in New Mexico over 20 years ago. I am a big believer in sending letters and notes to people to show gratitude and appreciation. To also say I care and to check in with those we love.
Write a note a make a difference in someones life and the karma will be yours back two fold.
My gift is having amazing students prosper and shine.
Thank you Kevin for taking the time to care for me.
Reaching out puts great energy in the world, a smile and something simple like a note can shift a persons energy lighter.

"Over 20 years ago (June 1990) I took a workshop with you @ Santa Fe. I just stumbled upon your website (glad to see you are still shooting and making wonderful images!) and viewed the short video of your Santa Fe Mag shoot. It was like a refresher course - and very inspirational. Thank you for sharing that today, and thank you for sharing in 1990.
You and your work were inspirational for me then, and now."
All the best,
kevin

http://www.kevinbruisie.com
http://www.wonderdogfilms.com

Icons & Symbolism

2011-07-31T14:47:00.000-07:00

My library is filled with books about all kinds of religions, spiritual entities, naturalist aspects, art history and photography, the sciences and humanity just ices the list. One of my favorite reference books is by Barbara Walker, published by Harper & Row
A fine tool for learning the varied meanings of symbolisms.

Color-Meaning-Psychology

2011-07-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

(cut and paste, check it out!)

http://www.sensationalcolor.com/color-meaning-symbolism-and-psychology/

On The Road

2011-07-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

1968 Airstream

If This Vehicle Could Talk?

So many of our friends have stayed in our sweet little camp vehicle.
We traveled far and wide, surfed, camped, visited colleges, seen many National Parks, board games, family trips to the river to boat and water ski.
When I travel we take surf boards, skate boards, computers, mountain bikes and tons of camera gear and some good books of which seldom do we have time to read for being so active.
Often we base out of this rig and it makes for a sweet space to create projects.
A romantic cabana for guest on the farm.
Four star hotel or camp trip.
The later is for me more down to earth and preferred.
My job is full of hotel stays so when we take a break its camping in style.
This rig also is helpful for jobs as a dressing room for styling.

HOME SWEET HOME ON THE ROAD AGAIN.

A Life Worth Living

2011-07-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Meditation Area built today to beat the heat and provide a sitting space for coffee, entertaining and most importantly to ponder and study my Buddhist practices.

Love your life or it will kill you.
Do you love your life?

If not change it before you are six feet under...its way too short.

My Life is My Art

2011-07-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

Carlos Cantreras Poetic Hands for NM Magazine 2011

My artful mind has a way of finding all the good in even the darkest topics.
I live on a farm and travel for work all over the world.
I have encountered some of the grimiest situations behind criminal minds to the most opulent dance floors of heads of State. Breakfast with celebrities, to sharing a meal with homeless hungry runaway's. One such day I am recalling right now was with my associate Andrea Bucci, an amazing person who worked along side me for years. We experienced so many things together from all walks of life. This one day we were shooting homeless people in NYC for Japanese Esquire. One such subject was a man sitting with his hoodie tied tight around his face...just a little hole so he could breath. I stopped and said "Hello how are your today?" He was a quite sort and I said I was shooting this story to help the homeless in NYC. He eventually took his hoodie off so we could talk face to face. His name was Herman and we did portraits, very normal and in documentary style with a 120 camera. By the end of the shoot he asked me if we could hug him. He hadn't had a hug in years. Both myself and Andrea hugged Herman, he smelled of the streets and I think it was one of the more meaningful hugs of our lives. Reaching out to others is key. Taking time for life experiences can set you free from your daily grind. So many friends spend way too much time in their cars on fwy's and on the net. I too do my computer time like most and since I live on a farm I have a lifestyle that is based on growing things and creating rather than hob nobbling around an industry that can consume one to never really have a life but to live on and off planes and vicariously through a voyeur observation. Sometimes you are privy to more but its really on a day to day occurrence pending the connection. I really appreciate all the opportunities that have been parlayed to me over the years and I continue to count my blessings.
This week its hard to say what is up....but farming is substance for my soul.
Photography is a passion
Family, well my kid is about out of here to college and its amazing to see the changes from last year this time to now...he's all maned up ready to go...a completely evolving soul on fire.
I m pretty proud of him as he's working many jobs, saving and taking charge of his life.
Empty nesting is around the corner and that too will be something to experience.
Book publishers are key for my work now and art projects that can make a difference.
California is the motherland for me and the sea is calling so next stop is surfing CA or HI
Jobs come and go....several are on the table and I look forward to those manifesting here soon.
One thing about living country life is that you may work all the time but I am surrounded by nature rather than exhaust and over population.
I loved living in NYC but I don' t miss the smell.
Just the food and all my pals and yes you do have more work at your fingertips when you are living in the urban setting.
Thankful that I can go from high heels to hiking boots in minutes.

Carpe Diem

PRO BONO JOBS

2011-07-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

I am always being asked to do pro bono work. Heres one for Family Advocacy, check out the video by south west productions (cut and paste)
http://osocio.org/message/abuse_is_a_never_ending_cycle_abusestopshere/

A new campaign about abuse from Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Esparza Advertising made this campaign for the Family Advocacy Center (FAC).

No complex interactive storylines or messages. Just “abuse is a never ending cycle – unless you choose to break it”.
That is what abuse victims need, a clear and powerful line. No vagueness.

The campaign contains a video, a print ad, 5 different billboards, a radio spot. And most important a well designed but basic website: abusestopshere.org.
Good work!

Website:

Advertiser:
Family Advocacy Center (FAC)
Agency:
Esparza Advertising
Additional credits:
Creative Director: Adam Greenhood
ACD/Writer: Jeremy Spencer
Art Director: Zak Rutledge
Art Director: Julia Amirzadov
Production Company: Southwest Productions
Director: Dave Roberts
DP: Barry Kirk
Editor: Clark Morris, Thirty-second Street
Sound Design: Sid Fendley, Mountain Road Recording
Stylist/Make-up: Liz Marshall
Still Photography: Karen Kuehn

SHADOW DANCE

2011-07-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

The More We Know about Ourselves the Better we can See and Feel the Subjects Before the Lens

~ Janus

--------------------------------------

The Shadow Dance— Understanding Repetitive Patterns in Relationships

“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”

— DR. CARL GUSTAV JUNG

What is it that constitutes a good relationship? Is it getting along harmoniously, being loving, truthful, honest, supportive? These are certainly virtues and ideals that we all strive for. And yet despite our most valiant efforts, we continually come across problems and situations that puzzle us about our relationships.

A very interesting thing about life is that it all starts repeating at a certain point and those of us who are willing to live a reflective life, have to ask ourselves some very important questions. What is this about? Why did I attract him or her? And why is this repeating in my life?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that who we fell in love with at 20 can be eerily the same person at 30, and even 40. We also know that the same kind of person keeps showing up as our boss, as a coworker and even as a friend, even if we decide to leave and distance ourselves from their presence.

We can continue to do that for a long time. We can leave one relationship and find another, and we can certainly leave a job, or a friendship, or even a sibling who we have decided is causing us pain. We can continue to blame others for our negative experiences, or we can muster up the courage to take a long, hard look at our own Shadow.

The Shadow

The Shadow, is a psychological term introduced by the late Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Carl G. Jung. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark rejected aspects of our being as well as light, so there is positive undeveloped potential in the Shadow that we don’t know about because anything that is unconscious, we don’t know about.

The Shadow is an archetype. And what an archetype simply means is that it is typical in consciousness for everyone. Everyone has a Shadow. This is not something that one or two people have. We all have a Shadow and a confrontation with the Shadow is essential for self awareness. We cannot learn about ourselves if we do not learn about our Shadow so therefore we are going to attract it through the mirrors of other people.

Taking Responsibility for Our Lives

The first thing we have to do in order to begin to see our Shadow sides, is to take 100% responsibility for our lives. This is a very difficult thing to do and no one does this overnight so we have to be patient with ourselves.

Being in the human experience, we have all had many painful, difficult experiences where it clearly looks like it is the other persons fault, or bad luck in life or whatever else we want to call it. So taking total responsibility for what appears to come to us is no easy task but it is well worth the effort because when we take responsibility for what happens to us, we can then learn and grow from our experiences and make new choices for ourselves.

Changing our attitude from blame to responsibility will change what happens next in our world. Our destiny is of our own making and what goes on inside of us will be reflected outside of us all the time.

I am very fond of this ancient axiom given to us by the alchemists of long ago:

“As above, so below, as within, so without, so that the miracle of the one can be established.”

What it is saying is that what is within us, will also be outside of us. Inner states of consciousness will be reflected in outer situations time and time again. If we are willing to look at the significance of these repeating patterns, we will see the synchronicity of events and situations and ultimately once integrated the miracle of the one is established as we become one with ourselves.

So What Does This Look Like in Real Life?

We have all had experiences with other people that really irritate us. Whenever we feel ourselves over-reacting emotionally to a quality or characteristic in someone else that pushes all of our buttons (and there will be a repulsive element to it), we can be sure that we are seeing a part of our own Shadow.

We will not be able to stand this other person or be around them at all. The reaction is usually extreme distaste as these characteristics or qualities that we despise or hate in others are our own and they are usually operating outside of our awareness. They are in our unconscious and usually they will be the exact opposite of what we believe to be true about ourselves.

Now a person carrying a light part of our Shadow we will be very drawn to, and may even fall in love with, and this is the ‘Gold’ part of our Shadow. So we can also project some of our very positive qualities when we meet someone we truly admire, but most of us have more trouble with the negative experiences as we encounter our Shadow. This is the psyche’s way of bringing itself into the light meaning the light of consciousness.

Projection and Denial

Projection is an unconscious psychological mechanism. We all project onto other people parts of ourselves that we disown, that we deny. We will usually not identify with the projected quality or characteristic at all. It’s them. It’s not us.

We will feel highly uncomfortable when we are around someone that is carrying a part of our Shadow. As I said before, and it bears repeating, there will often be a repulsive element to it. We will be repulsed by that person and whatever they stand for. It will feel like whoever they are is totally against our principles, moral values and ideals and we will be highly critical of their actions or way of being in the world.

So notice. Notice who comes into your life that irritates you or pushes your buttons. It’s usually something that is so unconscious within yourself, that it’s impossible to see that it’s about yourself. If it indeed is a part of your own Shadow, in time you are going to see how it’s going to start repeating in patterns.

Whatever we deem too negative to express, whatever goes against our highest ideals will be conveniently projected out into the world. Our energy is like a magnet and the unconscious is profound. It will draw to itself, itself over and over again. And generally the person receiving the projection is what analysts call ‘a good hook’ for the projection. They will be acting out that quality or characteristic themselves and usually they will be doing it to an extreme so it is easy to see that it is them doing it. But as the 12-steppers say, “if you spot it, you got it.”

Polarizing with Others

Jung believed that whatever we are highly identified with in our character, the opposite extreme will be in our unconscious. He called this the law of opposites. So unconsciously we will attract the parts of us that we actually badly need.

So notice extremes between yourself and other people, where you are polarized — one person is doing one extreme and you’re doing the other extreme. Notice how often this happens. If it happens often enough, then it is definitely something you are totally out of balance with.

Chances are that we are lopsided in our character and we need to learn how to do precisely what they are doing if we want to grow. Not to the extreme that they are doing it, but halfway. This is the answer to many of our relationship problems.

Doing Shadow work requires that both partners have to be willing to come to the middle of the polarization. It requires honest and authentic communication. Two people who trust each other enough to be vulnerable, and have a commitment to their relationship, can help each other see each others Shadow and bring about in each other a more cohesive state of integrity with the Self.

There are no accidents. Both people are attracted or repelled whatever the case may be by an unconscious collusion. There is an order in the Universe whether we can see it or not. According to Jung, the psyche is always striving for wholeness and if we can take our cues from nature we will see that wholeness is balance. As Marian Woodman, a Jungian analyst, so aptly put it: we have day time and night time. Which one of us would want no night time?

A Blind Spot

We all have ‘blind spots’ in our character as Dr. Liz Greene, PH.d., author of Relating: Living With Others on a Small Planet, points out. She says these inherent “blind spots” in the psyche that we know absolutely nothing about are precisely what creates havoc in our relationships.

It can be really interesting when a friend points out to us something about our character, and we will say to them, “I’m not like that.” We will resent them. We will be angry with them and we won’t want to have anything to do with them anymore because we will feel misunderstood.

So whenever you catch yourself saying “I’m not like that,” if it gave you an emotional charge when they said it, — you probably are like that, you just don’t know it. A really good way to bring your Shadow qualities into awareness is to ask a couple of really close friends to describe you on paper. They see our Shadow side way before we do. Our real friends love all of us, the light and the dark, and accept our humanity the way we accept theirs. And isn’t acceptance what we are all looking for?

Too Good to be True

We’ve all met people who seem too sticky and gooey. They are “too nice” and sickeningly sweet. We sense that they are somehow being fake when we are around them and we feel we never really know them. They are, as the saying goes, “too good to be true.” These people are barricaded behind their mask or persona. They will deliberately avoid any kind of negative reaction or emotion. They refuse to be real and suffer the acceptance of their own dark side and this can be a dangerous thing. We are better off knowing about our dark side because as Jung put it “Whatever one does not live, lives against one.”

Slips of the Tongue

How many times have you said something and then said, “I didn’t mean it that way.” Well we did mean it that way and our Shadow decided to have it’s say. The Shadow side of us relates to life much more authentically and it will come out whether we like it or not.

Repressing or denying our Shadow can lead us into experiences where we are overwhelmed by it and it can take us over. Then we can end up with egg on our face, acting in the very way we have denied or condemned in others and saying to ourselves, “Why did I act like that? I am not like that.” Well when we say it like that — “I’m not like that,” — we are like that, we just don’t know it.

There are many hidden and undeveloped parts in all of us and in attempting to keep our self-image intact, we will completely deny their existence. We do this because we want to be accepted by our society, by our families and our peers. Our baser qualities — our hypocritical behavior, our excessive greed, our ruthlessness, our ability to be manipulative — go straight into the unconscious. But that doesn’t mean they are not active in our life, they just live in the unconscious (unsupervised), and periodically they burst forth into our awareness and propel us into situations that we would much rather avoid.

Choices Versus Denial

So the more we know about ourselves, the more choices we have. We can then choose not to behave in a certain way. When we don’t know about something, then it will take on a compulsive, autonomous element to it.

These are the embarrassing moments that all of us in the metaphysical or Christian movement can attest to when we say or do something which is the opposite of what we intended to do or say. We embarrass ourselves and can feel really bad about ourselves because we are not living up to our ideals. Ideals are important and certainly have their place in our world, but not at our expense. Not when it’s not the truth about how we really feel or who we really are.

So learning about our Shadows can bring us the real peace Jesus talks about when he says “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is

embodied in the individual’s conscious life,

the blacker and denser it is.

At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag,

thwarting our most well-meant intentions."

— Dr. Carl G. Jung

We have to be willing to see the part we play in attracting certain relationship issues into our lives. We can’t change anything we don’t know about. And we certainly can’t change other people so we must be aware of our total Self, the dark and the light, and then at the same time make choices about our own behavior.

A Life-long Process

No one does this overnight. Shadow work is a life-long retrieval process and it takes years of patient inner dialogue with oneself to understand and even admit to ourselves that Shadow work is even realistic and necessary. It’s not easy to do and takes time and energy. Not always, but most often it begins at midlife when we become determined to see the truth about ourselves after a series of painful relationships. As the Greeks inscribed at the temple of Delphi “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.” Two very wise statements.

It is impossible to truly learn about our whole Self and grow into more conscious human beings without this kind of internal self-honesty and as Robert Johnson says in the book Owning Your Own Shadow, it takes a great deal of courage.

-------------------------------

Rebeca E. Eigen is a graphic designer, public speaker and Astrologer specializing in the 7th house (marriage) and aspects to Venus and Mars. She uses astrology, psychology and personal stories to illustrate how we create patterns in our relationships. Her workshops make this difficult concept easy to use in our everyday lives. She is also available to do individual counseling sessions based on your birth data (time, place and date).

rebeca@shadowdance.com.

Book Contest BOOK NOW

2011-07-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

MAVERICK CAMERA

Now on Blurb.com
Check it out...entered the Book Now Contest.
A look into my career in NYC for 16 years of shooting for all the major magazines
and agencies. I thank the Editors and Art Buyers, Art Directors and all my friends and family who supported my works in NYC.

You All Made a Huge Difference.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2320932#book_comments_pane
(cut and paste this link.)

Next stop hunting a real publisher
know any please connect me.

San Francisco Group Show

2011-07-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

Photograph by my dear pal Norman Mauskopf copyrighted.
Shot at the Mustang Ranch in Nev.
I own a silver print of this image and love the quality.
http://www.normanmauskopf.com

Fraction Magazine
www.fractionmagazine.com

Rayko Gallery
428 3rd Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-495-3773
August 11th-September 20th

Pieces by many amazing photographers one each.

Kirk Gittings - Norman Mauskopf - David Maisel - Susan Hayre Thelwell - Susan Burnstine - Allison V Smith - Sam Portera and many more. I have one of my artist shot 8x10 in this show as well. Thank you to David Bram CEO Fraction Magazine

The Subjects Feels Count Too

2011-07-08T19:13:00.001-07:00

photograph by karen kuehn demo for class

JT Capoeira

Karen 's coarse at the Santa Fe Workshops MOJO Rising

"It was a truly magical & cathartic experience. Definitely not just another photo shoot. i felt pushed to convey real emotions, to truly be present & give a part of myself. Normally i'm pretty shy & this kind of thing would make me feel vulnerable & uncomfortable. Yet i knew i was safe & appreciated. i'm still trying to process all that went on that day but i am sure that i am better for being allowed to be a part of the class."

Thank You

Music A Gateway To Original Imagery

2011-07-08T14:11:00.001-07:00

photograph by karen kuehn

MY INSPIRATION MUSIC AS MUSE

Years ago when I was 19 I read a cover article about a photographer named James Woods.
Now the head of the photography program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco CA.
I recall feeling those images as they had a huge impact upon my young mind.
Evoking emotions of humor and weather felt and timelessness.
I loved them so much that thirty years later I still have this article as it was a big part of my creative journey. I applied to the Art Center College of design based on this article.
James Wood was one of the teachers and I couldn't wait to get enrolled in his class.
I wanted to do what he was doing. Be creative.
I felt my mind was parallel with him.
Not even but I was a seedling who would sponge up all knowledge and begin the process of making my mind an athlete and go for the gold so to speak.
What fun. I couldn't believe that I actually had this person as my professor.
One day he came in and played music and had us all write down our visions from what we heard and than go off for the week and manifest those images into photographs.
I was awesome and I have been using this technique to inspire my students ever since.
Thank you Jim you inspire and continue to do so.

As for songs...usually all genres without words work well.
Vangellis
Kitaro
Mickey Hart
Dead Can Dance
George Winston
Fellini
Miles Davis
All Windam Hill Albums
YoYoMa
Jimi Hendrix Bad to the Bone Blues Version
The list is vast dive into international world music as well.

good luck, make this an activity with your kids and friends.
Than share the images.

Hand to Heart Thank You Class

2011-07-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

"Words do not accurately describe what you have done for me this week. Your love, all your special gifts! YOU have left an imprint in my soul and I am forever transformed into a new soul because of it. Thank you"

Love Michelle Elloway - AZ

"What can I say, you've changed my life! You are such an inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing your amazing gifts and your heart & soul with us."
Love Cathy Budd - MI

"Thank you for a terrific time! I appreciate your energy and vision. May the Lord continue to bless you greatly."
Ron McClure - NH

"This week was exactly what I expected and what I did not expect at the same time. Thanks for giving me the time to explore photography & myself and kicking my ass out of my creative funk I've been in. It's truly been a life changing week for me and I'm eternally grateful."
Scott Erickson - CA

"I absolutely love you & this class. I loved getting to know you & your class.
I will be forever changed I love it.
Thank you.
Katie Dulap - IL

"You teach me so much not just in photography, but also how to live a life that I want to live."
Thank You Sooo Much
Yang Gao - China

"I feel like I transformed more as a person & photographer this week than ever before-thank you for being the reason for that! "
All My Blessings
Megan Westervelt - CO

GESTURES

2011-07-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

photo by Dana Wotruba on set today for The Equestrian Cup

Thoughts on Gestures coming soon.....

THE SON MY HEART

2011-07-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

7/8/11 on the farm
(by the way these bongos are mine and I swear Ben Harper my favorite musician lost em)
Amazing tone.

Today my son Emmett asked me before the sun went down to hook him up with a few snaps for a casting call tomorrow. No problem, we ran around and cooked up a few things so he could go in with some fresh images for his meeting.
So why not post my pride and joy.
I am the luckiest mom and my son is really beginning to bloom.
College mid August with a music major and minor in physical therapy.
He says he s going to be a famous rock star.
I say WHY NOT!
His song writing and producing is really coming along, age 17 and he's working on logic programs making sounds that merge Disorient meeting The Dead Can Dance.
Very sensual trance songs with vibes the listener can get lost in....and WOW he's on fire.
It wouldn' t surprise me if he D J's at Burning Man some year...
Watch out cuz he's gonna do something huge with his life
I feel it and his dad and I are so very proud.
Thank everybody whom has been a part of his positive processes.
It's our lucky life and he's a gift.

Graced are We for such a loving cool Spirit.

MOJO Rising Graduating Class 2011

2011-07-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.santafeworkshops.com/FridayShow/phkk_062611.mov
(cut and paste link to see student show)
Assignments:
Nude Self Portrait
Utilizing All Your Senses
Looking at Light
Identifying Light & Locations
Getting to know a Stranger
Co Creating
Evoke Emotions
Dwan Light Sanctuary
Spiritually Connection
Going With The Flow
Tartaric Vision
Feeling the Vibes all Week Long
Getting our MOJO on.
(and much more)

Congrats to a Wonderfully Creative Class

Story by Janus Osiris RedMoon

2011-07-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

MY GREETER from Burning Man Evolution, Janus Orisis RedMoon wrote this sweet piece and shared it with me this morning. Its inspiring. I want to share it with my friends to honor his words and feelings about the Goddesses within each of you. Enjoy.

"To my sisters, lovers, friends, and family of my tribe...

I awaken this morning filled to bursting with joy, gratitude, and love for YOU! For who you are to me is nothing short of Divine. Within you I see but one of the countless faces of the Goddess herself, and I realize that the Divine Feminine is not coming back to our realm at this time -- she is already here.

I awaken this morning aflame with a need to express myself to you, to let you know that I sit in humble gratitude for you. I am so very thankful that you have chosen to incarnate at this time, as a woman, to assist in ushering forth the New World. I am fully present to the task you have chosen to undertake: to arrive on this world, as a female, at this time in the ancient future, when the male patriarchal paradigm is in full swing.

By various males in your past (and in many cases, your present), you have been oppressed, abused, violated, dishonored, disrespected... and that's just the tip of the sad iceberg. For all of this, on behalf of all men, I apologize to you. I am truly, deeply sorry for what you have experienced, and I humbly ask you to please remember that in the future, if a man ever treats you with anything less than the respect, dignity, and devotion that you, the Goddess, deserves, please look kindly upon him, for he fails to recognize the divinity standing before him, and he knows not what he does.

I am certainly not trying to seperate myself from my fellow men... for I know, and own, that I have had my moments where I've fallen short in this regard, as well. Please know that I recognize this. If any experiences you've had with me personally have left you feeling anything less than fully honored, please understand that this was not my intention, that I am truly sorry, and that I humbly ask for your forgiveness.

The man I want to be to you is a source of joy and comfort. I want to be a friend that you can count on to share a laugh with, to cry with, someone with whom you know you can share your thoughts and ideas. I want to be a person that you can rely on to be there when you need to feel safe, solid, and secure. I want to provide an anchor for you, a source of grounding for you when your world is swirling madly around you.

The man I want to be to you is someone who will listen to you when you wish to speak, and will understand you when you wish to be understood. When you need a shoulder to lean on, please know that I will always strive to be there, like a rock, or your favorite tree (which you are free to climb, at any time ;o) When you undertake a project dear to your heart, know that you have my full support and encouragement, and when you choose to express yourself creatively, know that I will be there, open, ready, and willing to receive your expression.

It is my wish to be all of these things to you, because I see you. I see you as the radiant expression of the Divine Feminine that you are, and in your eyes I see the spark of love that you have brought here to share with this world, and for you, I am eternally grateful.

Blessings and salutations to you, and thank you SO very much, from the depths of my being, for being a part of my life, and for showing up like you do for me and my fellow men. I love, honor, and adore the essence of who you are.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! A thousand times, again and again, Thank You!"

With Love, Janus

Yvette Lopez Playboy Model

2011-07-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

photo by karen kuehn demo for MOJO Rising Workshop NM

"Working with Karen was truly a spiritual experience"
Yvette Lopez

http://yvette-lopez.weebly.com/

2011-07-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

MOJO Rising Student Note

2011-07-04T22:27:00.000-07:00

photo by Scott Erickson Photographer in MOJO Rising Workshop 2011

"At the airport waiting for my flight...as the hoards gather up under the boarding gates at Southwest, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you again for an amazing amazing week. I learned a ton and gained an amazing amount of experience but more than anything I grew..equally as a photographer and as person. There's a large number of reasons for that but behind it all was you..pulling strings for all of us behind the scenes and providing such a good direct and honest model. And please don't worry about preaching to your class...we came for a lesson and while we may not do exactly as you preach, we are always taking things away from it personally.

Ok, gotta jam but wanted to share something else, part of the secret for success this week and it comes in six-pack form which is really just the best way to edit photos... :)"

Thanks again!

Scott Erickson
Director

Eckhart Tolle

2011-07-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness."

Radical Self Reliance

2011-07-03T20:08:00.001-07:00

Photo by Miss Leggy 2010 Metropolis Burning Man

INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Nurture Love & Freedom.
Happy 4th of July People.

2011-06-30T23:50:00.001-07:00

"If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path." — Joseph Campbell

15 Years Freelance NYT

2011-06-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

Nice to Be Included in This Book Project.

Tell a Story

2011-06-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

photo by karen kuehn

Day Book karen kuehn

Always Carry Your Camera

CULTIVATE POSITIVE THOUGHTS . . .

Models Come in All Shapes and Sizes

AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER

Whats He Building

Artist of New Mexico

Sunny aka Sun Ra

Along the Rio Grande

National Geographic Cats Story

Whose At The Wheel

Educate Yourselves on ART

360 Degrees of Emotion

FARM FASHION for ART

Photographer New Mexico

Sage and Pupil

Eleanor Preger Testimony

New Mexico Photographer

Design That Makes My Mouth Water

STORY LINES

NEVER A DULL MOMENT

Never A Brown NOSE

Four Questions of Value in Life

INTERMISSION

WOMEN S RIGHTS ROCK ON LADIES

Mercury Retrograde: Astrology on the Web

The Fountain of Youth

The Four Agreements

National Portrait Gallery

Women of Influence

Deadline: December 03, 2011

The JOY IN MY LIFE

BRAGGING RIGHTS

SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

ON THE FENCE

How to Take Great Portraits | Portrait Photographer's Tips for Taking Great Portraits

NEW MEXICO BASED PHOTOGRAPHER

Elouise Cobell - RIP

CHANNEL your FEELINGS into YOUR ART

Christopher Rowland

Walt Whitman

Nominate Your Favorite Teacher in the Photographic Community

Branding

Nice To Be Included

Native Philosophy

Autographs Please . . .

Nice Notes

It Takes A Team

MAGAZINE WORK

Style with Flair

FORMS

New Mexico Based Photographer

CHING CHING for Our Country

A Prayer for ALL Sentient Beings

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

by Sogyal Rinpoche

I Can Relate

IN THE NOW IS IN THE KNOW

Dear Friends,Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said:"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you".

"In other words:

"Freedom consists in finding the point of power, which is always in the present moment. It also means: how you respond to what happens is more important than what happens."Eckhart.

In other words:

"No stories...just be of love and cling to nothing...ebb and flow with accepting the now...of what is! "

With Love karen

Burning Man Art

TRUTH IS BEAUTY

BURNING MAN & CAMERAS

Career & Motherhood

GET YOUR ART HEAD ON

Maverick Camera book nominated for PDN People's Choice Award

BURNING MAN IMAGES

The Importance of Reaching Out

Icons & Symbolism

Color-Meaning-Psychology

On The Road

A Life Worth Living

My Life is My Art

PRO BONO JOBS

SHADOW DANCE

Book Contest BOOK NOW

Dear Friends,
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said:
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you".

"Freedom consists in finding the point of power, which is always in the present moment. It also means: how you respond to what happens is more important than what happens."
Eckhart.