Infectious Art

The Jones New York women's fashions factory outlet is closing. Come January it will be gone. Like so many of the stores in the mall at the intersection of Wellington and Exeter Roads, it soon will be empty.

My wife and I stopped by there the other day. Retired, we seek out bargains and the Jones store was filled with them. Marked down women's wear, marked down again.

My wife tried on this and that and bought more this and that than I would have liked. I felt we couldn't afford it; We're retired. She felt we couldn't miss the bargains; We're retired. Ah, the same shade of grey but it looks different to each of us.

While my wife shopped, I took pictures. Surrounded by beautiful fabrics and clean light, I took out my little camera and set to work.

The staff watched, obviously curious. I got down on my knees for one pictures and stretched out over a round rack of dresses for another. I held my little camera up, down and rotated it diagonally.

Unable to keep their silence, they asked me politely what I was doing. I told them and I showed them the pictures on the camera-back monitor.

"Oh." They understood.

Now art was in the air. It filled the store and the staff was infected. "Have you looked outside?" A couple of the sales clerks were really getting into this and they had discovered their own art moment. "Those clouds won't last," they told me.

I slipped out the door into the parking lot. They were right.

The only constant in life is change.

For sharing family photos, Facebook is good but I find it cluttered. I share images quickly by including them in blog posts. The picture of Fiona at the end of this post was downloaded within minutes of hitting the Net.

But the speed at which we share stuff today is not today's story. Today we look at milestones and the changes I've noticed in Fiona. I checked the Internet and discovered . . .

Motor skills: At first Fiona was a "Wobbly Head." But little ones are exercise crazy and all that vigorous stretching and kicking quickly pays dividends.  At three months she holds her head high, her Wobbly Head days are behind her.

Vision: Most newborns focus best on objects about 12 inches away, or the distance to mom's face during a feeding. But by age three months, according to the experts, Fiona is ready for art. The experts agree that Fiona is ready to appreciate more complex stuff, like intricate, geometric Navajo designs in rich earth-tones. Her preference for a big, beautiful red painting done by a friend in Montreal is real. I am not imagining things. (Whew!)

Hearing: Even newborns respond to loud noises; They blink, act startled, even frown. But today Fiona responds with noticeable discernment. She smiles — a relaxed, contented smile — especially whenever mom or dad are speaking.

Communication: At three months communication skills are definitely non-verbal but they are present nevertheless. There is a new tone to her cries, the coos. One best pay attention or soon the tone will take a nasty turn and Fiona will get downright insistent: "Now, listen up!"

When pleased the little queen will measure out a smile and if bored she will entertain herself by blowing bubbles. Waving hands and wiggling feet can be quite captivating. If you are going to hold Fiona's attention you've got to prove yourself a more interesting companion than her ten toes. This is not as easy as it sounds.

(This makes me think of a picture — a close-up of her little lips, so perfectly formed, pursed, puckered and blowing bubbles. Could be beautiful.)

Which brings me back to our walks down the hall. The experts say simple conversation, and mine can be as simple as they come, lays the groundwork for language development. Describing sights, smells and sounds around the house is good. Fiona may not understand a word but she is sensitive and picks up stuff from just the tone of your voice. (I've actually used a firm tone to ask her to stop crying and she has stopped. I immediately headed for the hallway to view the art on the walls and to reward her for good conduct.)

Which brings us to the flip-side of all this. Babies reach developmental milestones at different ages, but by three months one should consult the baby's doctor if any of the following red flags are flying:

• No improvement in head control
• No attempts to lift the head when lying facedown
• Extreme floppiness
• Lack of response to sounds or visual cues, such as loud noises or bright lights
• Inability to focus on a caregiver's eyes
• Poor weight gain

 Like I said, Fiona has passed some important milestones.

Update: Fiona at 21-months

Milestones are still being reached and passed. "You go, girl!"

Fiona soon to be three - months!

For those who are waiting patiently to see Fiona and daddy John. Here is a post just for you.

Fiona has passed a milestone; She is no longer a newborn baby. She is now simply a baby. She now is holding her head up, checking out her surroundings. So far everything seems to have passed inspection.

Judy calls her a pothead as she is quite taken with the stainless steel pots hanging from the ceiling above our kitchen counter.

I think of her as more of an art buff; She quiets right down when I stroll around our home and discuss the art with the obviously intensely interested little girl cradled in my arms. She is especially interested in the various sculptures that sit on our livingroom mantle.

Cheers,
Rockinon

You're more powerful than you think.

Note: the video has been changed. I was told that my first was like a feel-good e-mail message. That was enough for me; I changed the video immediately. I removed the cheese.
__________________________________________________

What we do in life is important. We've all heard of the "Butterfly Effect." If conditions are right, small actions have big effects. 

Your actions reverberate in the world much longer than you would ever imagine. You truly are more powerful than you think.

This post and the video were inspired by a passage in the book The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. Troubled by the unfairness of the biblical injunction that wicked acts by the fathers will be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation, Jacobs, after much thought, arrived at a generous interpretation, and came to appreciate the passage with his new insight.

As a young boy I, too, was troubled by the unfairness of this Biblical passage. My mother had an interpretation which was in agreement with Jacobs. Years later I chatted with a minister who would go on to become a bishop and he confirmed my mother's interpretation.

Our actions influence others. A father's bad actions set a bad example not just for his children but  for generations to come. Set a bad example and your children and your children's children may very well suffer. 

But why stop with fathers?


Cheers, 
Rockinon.

Modern Dance_a burning obsession

Years ago I shot some pictures for a gentleman and his wife; Both were movers and shakers in the art scene here in London, Ontario. As payment for my work they gave me not just cash, always nice, but tickets for two to each show at a local theatre.

Of all the theatre stuff I was exposed to in those 12-months, I think the modern dance nights were my favourites. I knew very little about modern dance but by then end of the year I was making the drive to Toronto to catch the Danny Grossman Dance Company and attending the Joffrey Ballet in New York. When the touring arm of the Joffrey stopped in London, I made sure I was there.

For me, the best modern dance was imaginative and visually witty with a patina of surrealism. I would go on about the "incongruous juxtapositions" but I never felt comfortable with that talk in art school and I am not about to get into it now.

The only way to make such a conversation work is to get a good group of friends, a couple of jugs of beer and lots of pub-popcorn and peanuts and then, and only then, is it possible to launch into a discussion of what it means to conduct an entire dance routine under a bright red sheet of lycra stretched tautly over an entire stage. The dancers are never seen. All we see are the moving, expanding and contracting bulges, the result of the dancers performing under the distorted fabric.

All the foregoing was an introduction to this video by Memo Akten.

This video is an off-shoot from a visual performance accompanying the Rambert Dance Company at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank, London UK . . . When the clip starts, you probably won't recognize a human shape, but your eyes and mind will be searching, seeking mental connections between abstract shapes and recognizable patterns, like looking for shapes in clouds. You'll be questioning what you see, is that him? is he sitting? is he crouching? is he kneeling? until all of a sudden, he'll be crystal clear . . .

The dancers are Robin Gladwin and Miguel Altunaga. Choreography by Alexander Whitley.


Reincarnation from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

Enjoy,
Cheers,
Rockinon

Christmas in Norway

I have linked to this site so often in the past that I am beginning to feel pangs of guilt. Oh well, I can handle them.

I saw Elle's tweet and thought "ho hum" but no, it's a" ho ho ho." What gives this post an edge? - the picture of the helicopter placing a Christmas tree on a bridge. It is just such a neat thing to do on so many levels.

The lights are starting to appear in London and soon I'll go out and get some shots of the local crazies who light their homes better than Niagara Falls.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Social Networking

Last night I blogged on my reaction to women wearing hijabs in London, Ontario. My thoughts had me thinking about how I treat Muslims and why I treat them that way.

This morning I heard from a blogger in Iran! A woman who goes by the name of Shahrzah, and she gave me permission to use some art from her site. She also took the time to enrich my knowledge concerning the attire of Muslim women.

Here are her comments:

Salam/Hi/Peace

I read your post and it's thoughtful. You have permission to use photos from my blog if you want to. And i am so happy that you've decided not to treat Muslim stereotypically as some few people do.

However i would like to give you few information about the hijab and hijab law in Iran. Actually based on law, Iranian women must cover their head by scarf, but it does not include forcing to wear burka or things like that. There's no force to cover the head thoroughly as well. There was a religious police since some years after revolution, but now after coming for second term, Ahmadinejad has eliminated that ancient religious police!

Nobody wears burkas in Iran. Burkas are popular in Afghanistan and some other Asian countries. In fact Iranian women never cover their face, bcs religiously they're not recommended too. (Iranians follow a different sect of Islam, name as 'Shia or Shiite Islam and women are not recommended to wear face cover.)

There's a traditional way of hijab with the name "Chador" and this chador has a history related to pre-Islamic era when Iranians used to follow Zoroastrian religion and women of rich families were obligated to wear chador. Nowadays nobody is forced to wear chador, but some women 'chose' to wear it.

Best Regards,
Shahrzah


My addition: Years ago, while still working at the newspaper I shot pictures of two sisters who were practising Zoroastrians. At the time there were about four or five dozen Zoroastrians living in London, Ontario.