Clare Consultation, LLCEve
I don’t remember exactly the year. Maybe it was 1979. Probably summer, but more likely spring since summer in Baton Rough, LA can be beyond the capacity of all but its own hearty inhabitants to survive. There was the protection of the stately oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Whatever the season it was mild enough to leave untroubled the breathlessly fine fabrics and careful protocol involved to make the wedding as glitteringly… Read More
Year Three Begins: Change in Everyday America
Two years ago, today I was interviewing Kate and Georgiana, #s 002 and 003 on the EX:Change. They are both women in the middle of their careers. They are both artists and teachers. I was interviewing them about change, the word and the concept that had gained such notoriety in the 2008 presidential election. Kate said this: “It’s really my strength and my weakness, this penchant for change. I can get impatient… Read More
Tucson, 9/11 and a Publication Date (!)
It’s happening! The EX:Change project’s interviews from early 2009 are going into a book. The tentative title – You Say Change, We Say…. And Loud Mouth (http://www.loudmouthpress.org/) is the perfect publisher – a nonprofit in Brooklyn devoted to issues of social importance. Here’s one thing they say about themselves. “Our projects offer an innovative, creative and artistic perspective on important topics that concern the entire human family.” Cool, huh? Fortunately, the… Read More
Intersections
Walking south on NE 28th Ave. under my new umbrella (the other one blew out in yesterday’s storm), I came to the corner at Flanders St. A man in full raingear – the heavy orange plastic stuff – stood on tiptoes behind an enormous canvass sign. The sign was as orange as the man. Although a square, it was situated as a diamond to warn oncoming traffic of the roadwork ahead. The… Read More
What the Land Holds Up
Just home to Portland from a week in the Texas Hillcountry. I did lots of my growing up on the land that stretches out either side of the Guadalupe River. This week I returned to that river and those hills to see friends I hadn’t seen since all of us were 15 years old. That’s a long time. There’s a word used to describe this aspect of human systems – equifinality (thanks… Read More
Because I Knew You Then, I Can Listen to You Now
I spent the last week with a friend I had not seen since we were both 15 – a friend I met when we were 6 and in elementary school in Sweetwater, TX. By the time we were 12, serendipity of some wild Texas variety had turned circumstances so that we both showed up in Mrs. Southerland’s English class in Peterson Junior High School, Kerrville, TX. His family had moved to start Gibson’s, an early version of discount stores now dwarfed… Read More