lori vrba photog blog

Camp Fire

Art Camp keeps chuggin' right along, with or without me.  I hit a wall several days ago...jeez, you know the wall...I've written about that %f**#@ wall so many times now that I'm even sick of hearing myself talk about it.  THE WALL=I can't take a picture that really matters to anyone else.  the. wall.

So there I am, hangin' out at the wall, loitering, trespassing, propped up against it with a brown paper bag and a pack o' smokes when BAM...I get hit with THIS NEWS...

I've been chosen as one of 50 photographers to attend the PhotoAlliance portfolio review at the San Francisco Art Institute.  Where big wigs with some serious credentials will sit with me, one on one and look at my work.  This is potentially career launching.  

AND THEN, are you ready?...Thunder was chosen as well.  WE ARE ART CAMP OVERACHIEVERS!!!!  We have earned our merit badges and we are going to the awards ceremony.  We leave in two weeks.

It is such a sweet prize that it is practically absurd.  We worked hard.  We poured our guts into work that mattered to each of us.  And the universe noticed.  Let the printing begin. 

what are you waiting for?

Lately I've been getting back to my woods.  I used to go there every day but with Thunder coming here and me becoming consumed with work and hyped up on the fun of having someone to share that work with...I abandoned many things...such as my woods.

So I've had this idea for a self portrait in these woods.  I've pictured it in my mind for a year now.  Standing on the edge of this pier, way up high, wrapped in white cheesecloth, arms stretched out wide, shot from behind.  I wanted it for my project called "Where God Lives".  I wanted the picture to say what I feel there.  That I take it in, that it feeds me, that I am safe there, that I let God in when I'm there, that I am connected to something bigger than this life, that this life is big.

So I went to the pier, to work out the angles and put the finishing touches on a plan for my self portrait...so I'd  be ready to shoot it first thing Monday morning.  The pier is gone.  Someone has completely dismantled it and now it is a stack of old lumber.  That picture will never happen.

Yea, I was sad.  But just like always, I left my woods that day with insight.  What are you waiting for?  Don't wait to live authentically, say what you mean, love well, press the shutter.

I am my Hair.

Ya wanna know what's been WRONG with me lately?  I've been a good FOUR WEEKS overdue for a cut & color.  And since I've only got a couple of inches of hair...and its platinum blonde, when I'm four weeks overdue...I look like some ol' hag who's been hangin' out in Vegas for the last 20 years.  It ain't good.

I've had plenty of scheduled appointments.  First, there was a stomach flu running rampant thru my family...cancelled hair.  Then my hairdresser Rita was out sick...cancelled hair.  This then that...cancelled hair.  So I finally got this Saturday appointment and I'm counting the days and I pass thru the kitchen last week and my husband says, "hey honey, the kids have basketball games Saturday at the same time so I'll have to take Aaron and you'll have to take the twins...blablablabla...I couldn't hear the rest because the room started spinning and my entire life was flashing before my eyes.  I. HAVE. TO. DO. MY. HAIR. GOD. HELP. ME.

This morning it was determined (not just by me), that my oldest son had not recovered from said stomach flu enough to play a game of B-Ball so I was OFF THE HOOK.  

The glorious day of new hair had really come.  And as I sat there in the chair, telling Rita how I loved her more than anyone else today...I could feel the power returning to me.  I am the opposite of Goliath.  With every snip, I felt stronger.  I felt like I could take on anything.  I felt like a real girl and not some ol' Vegas has been.  I could see the real me stepping back into my body in slow motion like in the movies when a ghost or spirit is possessing someone.  I'm baaaaack.    

Its new hair day...and in the words of Steinbeck, my world is once again spinning on greased grooves.

Guitar 101

I had my first lesson with the new guitar teacher last night.  I wasn't going to go because it was one of those nights where I just wanted to get in my pajamas and crawl in bed with magazines and snacks.  But at the last minute I decided to ignore what I FELT like doing and chose what I knew would be good for me.  

Having had this guitar for 8 months, and having had some private lessons, and having played obsessively for most of these 8 months...I figured I would be somewhat advanced within the group, given that this is Beginning Guitar.  Oh I was not.  This guy teaches an entirely different method of playing and I mostly just sat there holding my guitar.  And for the first 20 minutes, I was thinking about how to escape without anyone noticing.  No easy exit, even for someone as tricky and shady as myself.

And then it all started coming together.  This very zen/California/new age/peace/love/and joy kind of teacher was talking about how important it is to HEAR the music.  That music is a language...and how does anyone learn a new language?  You don't spell first.  You don't memorize first.  You listen and you speak.  He asked us to listen to him play a very simple song on his guitar, and then try to play the same thing ourselves.  And in doing so, we began to understand HOW one makes music on a guitar.  Immersion.  We became sensitive to the qualities of each string.  We began to anticipate what our fingers would need to do next to make the right sound.  We were one with our guitars.  Get it?  

He ended the evening by proposing that this method could easily fit in any category of one's life.  Awareness, anticipation, immersion, being tuned in.  Do you want to just go through the motions are do you want to have a deeper, honest experience?  I thought...mothering, relationships, photography, my surroundings, art.

And to think I almost went to bed with magazines and a snack.

Code Blue? Code Red?

So which is it when someone is dying?  Ya know, in the hospital when everybody comes a'runnin'.  Flat-lining?  That sounds about right.  One would think that I've watched enough Grey's Anatomy to know the answer.  Flat Line.  That sums it up.  Hey listen, if you came here today for a li'l jolt or a chuckle...go ahead and move on to whatever else ya got bookmarked.  

There is no earth shattering event that brought this on.  In fact, I was surrounded by kick ass women all weekend and I absorbed some of that kick assedness just by standing really really close to them.  And I realized that I had not spent enough time lately standing close to kick ass women.  There's my first problem.  Hey Thunder...you are a helluva assistant, but let's face it...a kick ass woman you are not.  And putting ALL my eggs in one basket for six months, neglecting everything else that has defined the best of me...well, here I am, f l a t l i n e d.

Those women, all the women that hold me up...they remind me who I really am.  And being around them remind me of the journey all the way to here...it was so freaking hard...and I finally got to the real me when I hit 40.  And I've not looked back since, nor have I slowed down or slipped or screwed up in any big kinda way.  And now...being launched like a heat seeking missel into 45 FORTY FIVE forty five F.O.R.T.Y. freaking F.I.V.E....it feels like another milestone life event.  Where I take a hard look at who I say I am, am I really all that?, who I let in my life, are they really all that?, who I am as a mother, friend, wife, photographer.  Good god that is a full plate for an old broad.

I'm tired of looking at my life, my work and myself.  But that is what I am compelled to do just about every single day.  Could I just go to sleep and wake up in five years when I'm FIFTY????  And while I'm sleeping could someone call my hairdresser and ask her to do my roots every six weeks while I'm sleeping so that I don't have to wake in horror?  perfect.