Gratification and gratitude

I sold a print! To a stranger! Which covers all my costs of printing and mounting the entire show! More importantly, it proves to me that my decision to take my photography more seriously was a good one. I now have objective proof that I’m good at more than one thing, and that’s never a bad thing to know.

But even without the sale, my opening on Wednesday evening was enormously gratifying. People I never expected would show up came to have a drink. I saw a library professional who writes science fiction talking to a horror writer who takes smutty pictures, an illustrator getting travel tips from a style blogger, a Renaissance woman discussing midlife career shifts with a designer turned future veterinarian… People from all different parts of my life collided and connected; who knows what might come out of it? It was a tasty stew, and the next time I feel lonely, insecure, or isolated, I want to remember that I’m the one who tossed the ingredients together.

I also want to remember, next time I feel like throwing a party, that holding it at a bar lets me enjoy all the best parts of a get-together without any of the tedious cleaning up before or after.

Meanwhile, two different editors praised my work in the last week, I brokered an introduction between two friends who really need to know each other, and Laura gave me some eggs.

I’m a lucky woman. Now I think I’m going to make an omelette.

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Can you dig it?

Look at these beautiful shoes.

Seriously. Look at them. They’re Doc Martens. I just ordered them on Friday.

I haven’t owned a pair of Docs since college. And they have steel toes, which I have never had in a pair of boots, never having been in a situation where I urgently needed to kick anything hard or worry about protecting my delicate little piggies. So why am I eagerly awaiting their arrival now? Simple: because later this year, I am going to be spending a week on an archaeological dig, a place where one is very likely to drop, trip over, step on, or stumble into something hard and heavy. Steel-toed boots mandatory.

An archaeological dig? you ask. Really?

Yes, really!

If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you’ve probably noticed that I love history — the older, the better. I also know an archaeologist who’s politely let me buttonhole him at parties for years to hear about digging up amazing things. When I last spoke to him, he mentioned a phrase I’d never heard before: “field school.” It turns out that a lot of digs actively welcome volunteers and students to help them with the hard work of pulling history out of holes in the ground. Yes, you pay for the privilege of doing heavy labor for them, but in exchange you get to learn the basics of excavation while learning about the era you’re digging up (and, if you’re a student, earning academic credit). It sounded like a damn fine way to spend a vacation: going somewhere interesting, learning something new, and — let’s face it — having an excuse to buy shoes. So I went looking for a field school that would get me somewhere I’d like to go while staying within my vacation budget. And lo, I found one — in, of all places, northern England. To be precise, in the city of York.

The thing about York is that it’s been continuously inhabited for thousands of years. The British tribes already had a nice little settlement going when the Romans showed up in 71CE and built an army camp there. When the Romans left, the Angles (as in Anglo-Saxons) showed up. Then the Vikings came. And so forth, up to the present day. The city is a layer cake of history, and whenever anyone does any major construction, they’re required to do an archaeological dig first.

Right now there’s an urban renewal project going on in a section of the city called Hungate. It’s a big project — housing, shops, green space, the whole mixed-use bag — which means a big dig. In fact, the Hungate dig is the biggest ever to be held in York, at least according to the Dig Hungate web site. It’s been going on since 2007 and will continue through 2011. And in the summers, volunteers can show up for a week or two at a time and stay in the local university’s housing. That’s what I’ll be doing.

For roughly $425, I get a week of daily seminars and lectures, basic dig training, the occasional guided tour of the dig, and cheap lodging with kitchen privileges. My  other expenses, besides food and sunscreen, will be airfare to and from the UK and a train ticket to and from York, which has no airport of its own. And I have enough frequent flyer miles to cover half my airfare. (More on budget travel at another time.) In short, everything is coming together to make it feasible for me to go back to England (which I love), see part of the country that’s new to me, satisfy both my history jones and my curiosity about archaeology, and maybe even dig up something fascinating.

I have no idea what I might find. I could end up digging among the Vikings or Romans, or I could be exhuming an 18th century slum. Maybe I’ll find a pipe, or dinnerware, or an arrowhead. Or maybe I’ll find a toilet.

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Acts of courage: Constance McMillen

I’ve been gobsmacked lately by the poise and courage of a teen in Fulton, Mississippi, named Constance McMillen. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She wanted to wear a tuxedo to her high school prom and bring her girlfriend as her date. The school district refused. She sued for discrimination and she won. But rather than allow a (gasp) lesbian couple to sully the (swoon) innocence of its prom, the school district cancelled the event altogether. Except it turns out they didn’t.

Parents organized their own private prom, and students and parents alike concealed from McMillen the information about when and where that dance would be. That’s a shameful throwback to the days of desegregation when white parents would host private proms so their children wouldn’t have to be subjected to the sight of black classmates dancing. Nonetheless, private parties are not subject to  laws against discrimination, so it’s legal. Sad, but legal.

But here’s the kicker: apparently, the parents and students weren’t the only ones keeping the secret. The Itawamba County School District cooperated by telling McMillen and half a dozen other students, among them two kids with learning disabilities, that the dance was on after all — and set up a Potemkin prom, chaperoned by the high school principal and several teachers at a local country club, announcing it at school as the “official” prom.

Let me repeat that for you. The school district didn’t just look the other way as parents — setting a glorious example for their children — deliberately excluded a student who had done nothing wrong other than plan to go to a school dance with the date of her choice. The school district didn’t simply passively condone this appalling show of closed-mindedness. The school district actively encouraged and participated in the deception.

One expects casual cruelty from teenagers, but one expects more from adults, especially adults who make much of their “biblically based values.” One pauses here to say to the grown-ups of Itawamba County: Shame on you. Shame, shame, shame.

Setting aside (because I am not a lawyer) the dubious legality of the school district’s actions, put yourself in Constance McMillen’s shoes. Her school district has basically made her the one whose fault it is that prom is “cancelled,” thus making sure her classmates consider her the scapegoat. Then her classmates and their parents, who are apparently carrying on a multigenerational tradition of bullying, have plotted to hold an event designed specifically to exclude her. And finally, she shows up at the “official” event to discover that it’s simply window-dressing intended to let everyone involved wash their hands of any legal liability.

And what does Constance McMillen do? Why, she tells reporters that at least the learning disabled kids got to enjoy dancing at the fake prom without anyone making fun of them.

People are offering her advice and scholarships to help her get out of Mississippi, but would you believe she’s said she wants to stay? This girl has more grace, more empathy, and more cojones than all her classmates and the so-called adults around them combined.

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Hanging

I spent a lot of quality time over the weekend mounting a dozen photos on black foamcore. The prints ranged in size from 8×10 all the way up to 20×30; when I was done and stood them up around the room to look them over en masse, they seemed very large and impressive indeed.

Then I took them to Olive and hung them, with a lot of help from Jerry, one of the owners (and a little “assistance” from his hyperactive puppy). They looked pretty darn small on a very wide wall two stories high. Nonetheless, once they were all hanging and the lights adjusted accordingly, I stepped behind the bar to get the full effect, and all of a sudden it hit me: people are going to see these photos. Lots of people — it’s a busy bar. And some of them might even buy one.

I finished hanging everything at around 3pm. A few hours later, just after the bar opened, a friend who’d stopped in for a cocktail texted me to let me know that someone there was vocally admiring my photos and checking out the price list.

If I can sell just one of the larger prints, it’ll cover what I’ve spent on supplies for this show. Cautiously optimistic!

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Sit back and enjoy the show

Sometimes, when you really want something, all it takes is the courage to ask.

There’s a bar in the Tenderloin where my friends and I have been meeting for cocktail hours fairly often for several years now. The owners regularly change up the decor; as it turns out, they do it by inviting people they know to hang their artwork. So a few weeks ago, I asked them what my chances were of persuading them to let me hang some of mine. To my delight, they invited me to put up a show…with less than 3 weeks to prepare for it. So I’ve been getting prints made, buying giant sheets of black foamcore, getting spare blades for my mat knife, and preparing to mount a dozen prints ranging in size from 8″x10″ to 20″x30″ (which is absolutely the largest print I’ve ever made, and I hope I sell it, because I have no idea where I’ll store it if I don’t).

I promised myself that this was the year I’d start taking my photography more seriously. Just a few months later, I’ve managed to arrange to hang my work, in a venue where other people have successfully shown their art (in some cases, literally selling it on the spot, straight off the wall ), for three months.

Am I proud and excited and ever so pleased with myself? Why yes! Yes, I am! And I’m wondering what other delightful things I can conjure up for myself.

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