Nonstop Inspiration

His hand hangs on my wall.

When I came to his home, about a year and a half ago, with five cameras to share, he made sure I knew he was interested in participating. He was usually front and center in the group of kids hanging around me, listening intently. He even accompanied a group of us around the grounds before ever holding a camera, planning shots, just eager to be a part of the project.

The Fundación Niños de los Andes cares for young people through most of their teen years, and he was one of the older boys there; slightly shorter than me, thin, muscular, with a delicate smile, long eyelashes and his short hair shaven to the skin on the sides of his head.

He got his turn with the camera the next day, and proceeded to break my heart with it. Looking at the images he captured later, I wanted every photo of his to be in the show. His hand behind the mesh and this one are the ones that made it in.

Here are a couple that didn’t.

Like the girl who started all of this, two years prior, his work inspired in me a deep sense of purpose. I wanted to make find more possibilities for him. Luz y Sombra's first show in Manizales, Colombia, came together, all the while my friends and I tried, without success, to find some opportunity for this talented artist to learn or work with other artists nearby. He and I friended each other on Facebook, hugged, said good-bye, and never saw or spoke to each other again. He had moved on to the next part of his life by the time I got back to the FNDLA a year later.

That return to FNDLA was just six months ago. When Henry and I came home from that adventure last July, all 100 printed photos of the photography show, Luz y Sombra traveled from Colombia to Oregon in my carry-on luggage. Things got really interesting around here when, about a month later, two Colombian chef friends came to visit our humble locale and infuse it with sabor.

Together, we put on a September-long, first time in the USA, Luz y Sombra show/photo sale at the steadfast Bay City Arts Center, complete with two foodtastic events.
It was tons of fun, but I was also on a serious mission, fueled by memories of my young friend shyly telling me he'd have liked to continue exploring his artistic talents, had it been a possibility. Pursuing study in the arts is about as practical a path for a Colombian street kid as it is for any person anywhere who wants to pay their bills. While taking pictures with me is fun, self-expression couldn’t be a future. Or could it?

Here’s where I want to high-five that hand, because I get to find out next summer. Thanks to the money raised at the Arts Center, I plan to return to Colombia with two art scholarships.

The money raised from that work and those kids' photos will pay for two big kids from the Fundación Niños de los Andes to attend one visual arts course each, at any of the city’s many schools. There is enough money for tuition, supplies, and transportation, so that creativity can be more than a childhood hobby for the older youngsters who have more to share.

There's no reason this can't keep going. Feel like taking part?

Starting on December 1, 2016, the rest of the photos for Luz y Sombra will be shown here, and on Facebook, and will be available for purchase. All proceeds will go to art scholarships for more kids from the foundation.

These particular printed visions are very special for another reason, but I'm going to wait until the day the show "drops" online to write more about that. December 1, see all of Luz y Sombra's photos, buy any of them, and make some dreams come true.

This one is no longer for sale though. It’s mine, along with the inspiration its young creator ignited within me, to see big kids chase their artistic side into adulthood.

In Defense of Other People

Hola, world! It's been a while, no?

Yep, I'm back in Dreamland, aka Colombia, and have been for a couple of weeks, only this time I'm not alone. My oldest son is with me, experiencing all the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this wonderful country.

We have gone high, we have gone low, we have been apart from familiar faces, and we have come to visit friends who are practically like family. Naturally, we have taken so many pictures. How could you not? This really is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Mountains, rivers, flowers, fruit, yada yada yada. 

Oh sorry, I don't mean to sound "over it" but we are lucky enough to live on the Oregon Coast, so we enjoy those things regularly, even if their intensity is muted by being so far from the tropics.

Instead of the impressive vistas, the aspect to traveling in Colombia that takes my breath away is the beautiful friends, some of whom I had the good fortune to meet in my previous travels, and who have welcomed us warmly in this one. Anyone can buy a ticket, make a hotel reservation, arrange a tour, and buy knick knacks. It takes something special to feel at home, so far from home. It takes other people. 

It has been my experience that people get kind of a bad rap. I get it, they're capable of some pretty ugly acts. I spent most of my youth seeing myself and my fellow human beings as fallen creations whose best moments were equivalent to filthy rags. Later, I embraced a very anti-social view, something like one sees on T-shirts. Others were foolish, aggravating, and inspired little more than eye rolls from me.

Sartre would be so proud.

Funny how motherhood can push a reset button in a person. The arrival of this boy, who is now my travel companion, made me feel more compassion towards others. I think he might have been the first person I met who was truly precious to me.

He was a little human sprout, so vulnerable and full of promise. The more time I spent with him, the more I saw the adults around me as babies, just further down the line. Even the harmful ones. 

But that was just one step in the journey. See, it's easy, actually downright primal, to love your child. He wasn't exactly an "other person." he was part me, and part the guy I love best in the world. 

Knowing and loving him was very much a celebration of my own self, even as it made me less selfish.

As the years and experiences have rolled by, I have come to believe that it is the otherness of other people that matters most. The more "other" they are, the more impressive a feat loving them is. That is to say that, the most inspirational journeys I have witnessed are those in which feeling love for another person isn't supposed to happen, but it does anyway. When those things that should separate us effectively don't, due to our determination to find a way to reach and care for one another.

You are probably familiar with the labels we put on ourselves help us identify similar souls, usually revolving around strong opinions, nationality, gender, race, orientation, deeply-held beliefs or lack thereof;  but these monikers also make us feel like we have little in common with those who wear the opposite brand. Our ancient tribal tendencies kick in and we pack up, in some cases clashing with what we see as opposing tribes.

That's when finding ways to love our ideological counterparts is almost an act of rebellion. It goes against our nature, which is what makes it so punk rock.  I am frequently on the receiving end of such defiant humanity, in this land where my son and I are a blond blue-eyed foreign assault on the locals' expectations. Before they know us, before they know how we will act, and whether we will be cold or rude, they reach out with generosity and kindness that completely negates everything I used to think about other people. 

In this country, they refer to it as "calor humano," or "Human warmth." It is most evident in the tendency to greet one another with physical contact, either with a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the cheek, or all three. It is most effective in the tendency to invite strangers into their homes, offer them a cup of something warm to drink, perhaps with something sweet to eat. It is most enviable when presented as a regional virtue. People I spend time with here ask me, "Have you seen how we are? How we take care of each other?"

It's impossible not to see it, as I am swimming in it. It's something I miss when I am not here. It's why, after a lifelong journey away from my earliest assumptions about mankind, I can and do dole out frequent hugs and I Love Yous wherever I am. Because I can't unlearn what Colombians have taught me: how wonderful life is when we err on the side of being less cynical and more affectionate with one another.