Kids On The Block...

I have been searching for some raw unadulterated inspiration. Pure unfiltered and honest. For days and nothing...

I have changed the living room furniture around... Only to go back to the original setting. Made up a thousand recipes from the leftover Easter ham. Cut my hair and bought a new lipstick. Searching high and low and looking for inspiration as if they were my car keys and I had misplaced them... Then a knock on the door...

The kids on the block...

Not certain if it was the sunlight or their spirit... They filled me up like a bouquet of mylar balloons and I am now ready to create...

To whomever stumbles upon these images and words ...

Happy Springtime.

About Gothic fairy tales...

Today I felt the summer leave me like an incredibly bored lover and I was acting out as if it was my first boyfriend. I have kept busy with many things. The adventures are things that I myself couldn't have had the imagination to foresee for I at times can lack the foresight.

The constant tug between motherhood and my own independence. My heart builds the roots of what is our family tree and my head wanders off while wearing fairy wings. The constant bickering between the two can be consuming.

Since I last posted I have flirted with a famous Spaniard, drank too much tequila. created many pieces of art and have met many new friends. But I have clean the closets and attics, held a yard sale, went on a date with the man of the house, prepared and organized the girls for the upcoming cold weather, shopped for Halloween costumes, groceries, cooked meals and the other one thousand things we woman do.

And I need the solitude of the nights. I need the silence to let me my mind wander. To create and learn because I always want more.

About numbers...

She has hurt her right arm 2.0 times. She is 3.3 years of age. She weighs 47.7 lbs. She wears size 5T and the shoe size is 10.

Tonight I get to see dancers, clowns and a illustrator. I might even get to meet one of those that kill zombies for a living.  Because after all it is I who lives in this city... The most haunted city in America and I...  I am nothing but an extra in this Gothic fairy tale...

LtoR.1.ButterBeanBeach2.BandOfHorses3.Olivia4.Kami5.Anita6.BandOfHorses7.Cake8.SpongeBobMovieXtra

 Have a great weekend peeps...

Oatland Island...

The Oatland Island Wildlife Center, a unit of the Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, is located about 15 minutes southeast of downtown Savannah. The Wildlife Center, which uses more than 100 acres of Oatland Island, is both an educational facility and a tourist attraction. Through their various exhibits and natural animal settings, the center educates the public about ecology and conservation.

Happy weekend  and don't forget to take a walk on the wild side.

Hysteria...

Each time I feel compressed and stressed I find a place to go. I could stay in bed but my mind says go. You might not know that I am a trained Yogi and I could have told my head to stay but my body said go. I went on a hike while my stomach was empty on a hot July. A tribe of five embarked on this 4 mile hike. A walk which would separate the fit and the strongest. The unwilling and the weak. I knew it would be an adventure. My kids ages are : 21, 13 and 3. 

Instead of learning about them I learned about myself.

I am in chaos and self-doubts. I feel too strongly and I am changing rapidly. I am sad and I am happy. I am in a hurry and I am relaxed.
I used to be full like the Supermoon. I no longer move along with the cycles of the moon.  
My uterus must be wandering and this is what they used to call... Hysteria.

Doe

In nine days, I turn forty one. Noticed I decided to spell it out... no shortcuts. I've begun to feel this urgency within every pore of my being. Every cell that makes up this body of mine feels the need to create and go places I have never been. Some might say I have began to feel mortality. You are right. But I began to feel it three winters ago. This? This is a quiet sense of knowing that I can't turn back time. I now feel as if all my previous experiences have integrated within. Swinging my body and dancing along the spiraling cycles of the earth. Stillness. A calm and very steady power. 

I will be heading to the mountains where I have decided to shout into all four directions. Hopefully the mountains will echo sounds that will heal my soul. Because truth is I have received the opportunity to become free of society’s untruths about woman and aging. I knew my rebellious spirit would help along the way. I now will walk more attuned with nature and with myself and have begun a new gestation period. I have lost the sense of outer connection and now it has been contained within. My inner fire burns brighter than ever and I am ready to create and transform.

Instagram freak...

I have a friend to celebrate this weekend and more adventures until then...

 Stay Sweet.

The Big Year...

 I want my children to be calm, present and centered. Then, teach them my inner voice says. I decide she is almost three years of age and if I would engage her in the process of knowing when to be quiet she will learn easily. I incorporated the art of bird watching as a past time thinking this will also teach her patience.

We grab the most important of tools for bird watching which would include:  A view master from the Discovery store that doubles as binoculars, my camera, two Popsicles and the IPhone in case we needed to search for an unknown specie. We both are so still and oh so quiet as the Popsicle begins to melt. We quickly spot a pair of cardinals. Which excites her, she pucks her lips and opens her eyes wide as if her silence and stillness had paid off big time. 

I reaffirm with a... you see your stillness paid off. I begin to snap when she notices how angry the birds seemed. Which I respond with a... They are just embarrassed. They usually eat alone. Content with the Popsicle and my explanation she reassured me she doesn't ever wish to eat alone. She pinky promises that she will always eat with me. 

This is where I found myself calm, present and centered.

Wishing each one of you a great weekend and someone to break bread with or better yet...
Someone to share a Popsicle with. 





PS... Big Year List will begin with...

1 female and 1 male Cardinal
1  Mocking Bird.

A Savannah Sunset...

Today was one of those days when I felt like getting away.
15 Miles later I was here...

And I found the best companion I could possibly have to enjoy this sunset.
She asked why do I photograph so many sunsets.
I said because today's sunset would never ever repeat itself.

Ms. M turns 13 soon.

Because sunsets are cathartic and intense.
They make me nostalgic and induce a dreamlike state to my being.

Birds in Flight

Because just watching a hopeful fisherman at sunset inspires me.

Because even if it has been done a thousand times the thought of squeezing the sun is grand...

Because a sunset holds so much promise.
Tomorrow will be brand new and with another sunset another chance for change and redemption.

So if you are down or feeling low... Take a walk at sunset.

It worked for us...

Happy Midweek Peeps...

Confessions...

My body is craving colors.
Not pastels.
Bright colors.
Bright blues and greens.

Blue like Frida Kahlo's house and the greens you find on a peacock feather.
Intense bright colors that burn deep.




As a woman the balancing act is endless and I am honest when I tell you that I envy the time male photographers seem to have. I've watched many female photographers trying to balance home and whatever event they can book to make ends meet. Male photographers seem to have it easier when it comes to developing and harnessing the craft and the process of mastering fine art photography. Their time always seem to be vast and easy to schedule. Diane Arbus did not have the same challenges as Ansel Adams. She a mother and wife was made to feel inadequate and guilty more times than not for choosing to follow her passion. Her guilt was unbearable while she was trying to figure out who she was as an artist and trying to fulfill her wifely duties.





Hubby has been gone for a few days now... a business trip. I expect him shortly this evening. My time has been limited. I can tell you that to make this post I had to make a few bribes and promises.





I can tell you that I look at my camera and I have an intense need for travel and self discovery.





I can also tell you that some will judge me because of such confessions.
But my body is craving colors. Not pastels. Bright colors. Intense bright colors that burn deep.




Instagram Freak... @adrianairis




Happy midweek peeps.

For the children raised by wolves...

Even when I try to be quiet I ain't. I burn in blue and other colors of the rainbow. My father would say I was so loud and rambunctious as if I was raised by wolves. I am intense and not much is half way. So when I tell you that I counted to seven and I quickly was lifted to heaven just by them and the color orange it is no exaggeration.

 


When I tell you that I saw autumn, an eternal fire just from the heart of the pumpkin reflecting in their eyes it is not just a magnification of my feelings towards them.


 


How could he had blame wolves? The son of Spaniards and native Indians and she the granddaughter of gypsies. My crib the Caribbean sea. How could they have doubt the blueprint left by their ancestors. When they practically made me out of sea foam, coconut milk, drumbeats and flamenco.


 



After feeding me stories of witches foretelling my arrival and the lives I had led. How could I be anything but a wolf.



 



October is almost gone and soon my images will change with the seasons. In the meantime I wait for Hallows Eve and tonight I look at the sky to a moon that is round and full. I howl hoping my howling will reach north of us further up the coast where the rest of my pack is located. Tonight I wish I had big arms to catch all the rain like confetti.








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Polaroid contest winner.

 

BohemianBabushka please email me adrianairis (at) comcast (dot) net for further details.

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Happy Monday peeps and who doesn't love cats?!
So one more...



Stay sweet!

About an 8th day...

The week got away from me. Between school, work and the kids I was robbed of my blogging time.
It seems I either need an 8th day of the week or assistants. In hopes of an 8th day I could not end the week without a giveaway and a few pictures.

Since I have repeatedly called her a social butterfly every weekend there is a shindig. She thought it would be funny to dress like a butterfly and carry her cell phone everywhere for the first of 3 Halloween parties she has this weekend.





Tropical Storm Sandy is missing us but with the weather she brought great clouds and a gorgeous sunset to our coast.



A quick idea...





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Polaroid...

I fell in love with photography back in 1978 when my mother was shopping at Sears and the newest of the Polaroid Instant Cameras came out on the market. I was mesmerized with the new camera and I had to sit down like a good student to be shown and demonstrated the new magical camera that would automatically spit out a picture already developed.

I sat there until I heard the click and the zoom like noise. I ran to her after she took my picture because I did not want to miss the moment the picture would actually come out of that camera. As she shook it and blew on it... shook it some more... Which I thought were the moves needed for the final image to develop. Right there at Sears… I fell in love with photography.

Frozen time, helping my memory, capturing history. These were all the thoughts I had in those short minutes at the age 6. A moment so intense and one that would change my life forever


Have a great weekend peeps...



Please stay sweet.