The Mission near Santa Ynez

Originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

One of the most incredible things about getting off of the plane in California is the way the flora and fauna hits you in the head....especially if you are coming from the middle coasts where things are still grey and cold. I was so amazed to see palm trees and orange trees that the freeways were almost tolerable.....

Blind Date

Bill T. Jones is blogging on the Company's website (link on title) and is worth checking out. I originally saw Blind Date on March 4th at Alverno College. It was performed to an enthusiastic, packed house - who literally sat in stunned silence at the end of it before breaking into frantic applause. My dear 78 year old Mother-in-Law said it was the "best live performance she had ever seen in her life." This is high praise from a woman who has see a lot.

The evening before there was a panel discussion at Alverno, "Patriot Acts: Patriotism in the Era of the Patriot Act." Moderaterd by Amy Shapiro (Prof. of Philosophy, Alverno) it included Bill, along with Lt. Colonel Clark Backus (Prof. of Military Science, Marquette), Karine Mareno-Taxman (Asst. U.S. Attorney in WI), Sandra Graham (Prof. of Psychology, Alverno and Minister, United Church of Christ) and Roger Quindel (Milw. County Supervisor).

It was an interesting group...but I felt it never got off the ground because the audience (and perhaps the panelists) were confused by the title....taking the idea of the Patriot Act - literally the document itself - and tripping up on the fact that they didn't understand it enough to talk about it.

I wished that the discussion could have gone more in the direction of what one does in an age of undue restrictions - how might one retain her patriotism (or define it) during a time of avid disagreement with a government that seems to demand that patriotism be defined in terms of the corporate, the powerful, and the political....

The good thing was that all of these ideas about framing patriotism and leadership and difference were in the forefront of my brain as I sat watching the performance. The company contains these ideas - using movement, music and text together in a way that is powerful. It is a visual unfolding of the questions. It will stay with me for awhile.

These are confusing times.

The image below is a book that I made almost twenty years ago. Hand-made paper, hand-cast pulp - letterpress and the pictograph-like images are made using xerox toner and fusing it in my oven....

I was thinking about it today - John and I coming up on thirty some years of marriage this year. The text in the book is this poem by Margaret Atwood. It is still true today.

Marriage is not a house or even a tent it is before that, and colder: The edge of the forest, the edge of the desert the unpainted stairs at the back where we squat outside, eating popcorn where painfully and with wonder at having survived even this far we are learning to make fire Margaret Atwood

OH GEEEEZ.....

Sorry people. I haven't been a regular blogger of late. Lots of projects going on, lots of ruminating - gearing up for a big trip to the west coast - LA / Portland / Seattle and points in between. I am starting to feel the pressure....the sabbatical year is half over. There are two major projects in process - but with HUGE amounts of research and work yet to be done.

In the last seven days I have given three lectures about the work I am doing - which is the first time I've talked these projects to large groups of people. More on a regular basis - I promise.