art, creativity, grief, loss, Love Lives On, moving forward, openness, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photography, Products, transformation, widow
The last decade has involved quite a bit of figuring out who I am now. Any time we have a big loss in our lives we eventually come to this point: who am I now that my children are no longer at home, who am I now that I no longer work in my previous occupation, who am I now that now that I will not have my own biological children? The list is endless. The evolution of who I am today even after being widowed has had its twists and turns. Leaving a corporate job that no longer fit. Remarriage and figuring out the role of bonus mom. My children growing up and leaving home to live their own lives. Even my pottery avocation has shifted and evolved into a bigger part of my vocation. I’ve talked about vocation some before. These days I still lead the widow social support group but we’ve added a co-leader so it’s not all on me. I spend more time in the pottery studio than out of it (when there’s not a pandemic, that is). I’m finding a new balance and a new me. There is an equilibrium that, if you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would have told you I would likely never experience again. So how did I find that equilibrium? Interesting question to consider. There was no one technique that did the trick. I’ve had some great coaches and mentors. There has been some natural evolution in my work life (nothing is constant but change, as they say.) I’ve done values surveys to try to figure out what...
art, creativity, grief, Kairos, landscape, living forward, memories, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Photography, widow
On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service. This year the parks will celebrate their centennial. The National Parks have been and continue to be important places for our family. We have made memories that will last a lifetime in these special places, some beautiful and some heart-wrenching. None of them would I trade. For me they are places of healing and joy. Ken and I took a rare solo vacation to Death Valley National Park for his 44th birthday. He and the kids spent time in Cades Cove of the Great Smokey National Park while I had to stay home to work. I have few regrets, that I didn’t go with them is one. We celebrated remission with a two week tour of Utah and Arizona. Ken made some of the most spectacular landscape photos of his career. We spent what would turn out to be our last family Spring Break at the Cumberland Island National Seashore. We had planned to do an RV trip to Yosemite the following summer. We scattered Ken’s ashes there instead. Half Dome is his monument. Glacier National Park was the first park I explored while learning how to live forward after such a devastating loss. Grand Teton was the amazing location of my second wedding when I found love again. My daughter spent three summers in neighboring Yellowstone National Park. She now lives in Grand Canyon National Park, just steps from the south rim. These places are precious to us. I think Ken’s love for the parks shines through in the images he created. I...
art, close up, creativity, grief, landscape, letting go, loss, Love Lives On, memories, moving forward, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photography, Products, widow
There is so little that is untouched, five years later; not much is as he left it. His studio has new occupants. The photography equipment - other than his camera that is now mine - has been sold. It has taken me all this time to finally find the will to begin the process of updating his website. This too is a letting go. Other than the cover page, I have made no changes. Technology does not wait. When he died he carried a first generation iPhone. These days, pulling up his website on a phone or iPad, which didn’t even exist at the time, results in nothing…a blank screen. I’ve had to start pointing people to the limited selection of photos in his online portfolio that was not meant for showcasing fine art prints. There is an odd noise coming from the computer he used to manage the site. The software it was created in is totally unfriendly and beyond my computer skills. Ironic, when I think back to the days when I first taught him how to use a computer. So change continues as it will. I have to move along with it. The first small improvement I made was behind the scenes but has begun to stem the tide of daily spam that has been an overwhelming problem for too long. Now the stage is set for converting the site to something that actually works to keep his work in the world. Ken was an award-winning photographer who had National ADDYs to his credit, the advertising industries’ equivalent of an Academy Award. It would break...
art, creativity, grief, heARTmaking activities
I’m participating in the 100Mandalas challenge led by Kathryn Costa to create 100 mandalas in 100 days (not necessarily consecutive though!) When I sit down to create something I tend to want to boil the ocean in my artwork. Mandalas provide a nice container within which to start. I can stay inside the lines if I want to…or not. I will explore different mediums and some of my mandalas will be observations. I’m keeping my options open. Shouldn’t we...
art, creativity, Father's Day, grief, Holiday
He wore a suit and hat. Always. My Papa was a Banker living in a city of flip flops, bathing suits, cotton candy, Ferris wheels and changing tides. He appeared a little incongruous in his environment. The man mowing the lawn in suit pants, sleeves of his sky blue dress shirt rolled up to the elbow. Wingtips on the beach. He wanted to be an artist but came of age during the Great Depression. There was no money to continue college let alone lead the life of an artist. It was not a sensible choice. He worked, married, had a child, and moved to the coastal town that still feels like home to me two generations later. He saw a need and worked to fill it. His family grew. The painter he had been at fourteen receded. I might have caught a glimpse of him occasionally when Papa paused in the hall next to a painting he had created a lifetime before. Yet I never had the sense that he regretted his career. He built something useful, creating it from the ground up. He was quite captivated by the people he helped in their own creation stories and even those he couldn’t help but who succeeded anyway. He spoke of them with pride and respect. Over a well-lived life the young watercolorist learned his own form of expression. He created with a different medium. Correspondence with Memory I’m taking an online art class offered by Penn State and this week’s assignment was Mail Art. We were charged with recalling a memory and documenting it by making both envelope and...
art, creativity, Motivational poster
Creativity is a spiritual practice. It is always ongoing and changing, not something that can be perfected, finished, and set aside. ~ Julia Cameron, The Artist’s...
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