Showing posts with label Marin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marin. Show all posts

The Many Channels of Me: How Twitter Has Helped me Grow, Learn and Support My Community

May 2015
As most of you know, I am a cycling advocate and love bicycles.  I am not fast nor do I race anymore, but I love everything about bicycles that allows us to be independent, healthy and see life a little slower.  Hearing a woodpecker as you ride through dense trees on Lucas Valley Road, or getting to soar along the road at China Camp while a bird soars right along with you... these are vivid moments of true bliss and being in tune with nature.  This past weekend, I rode in the Tour de Marin ride to support Marin County Bike Coalition. Prior to this, I volunteered at the Calpark Tunnel for Bike to Work Day. During both of these events, I photographed and shared my photos on Twitter from my accounts @sfbikegal and @cproppe .
Someone from the Bike Council asked me what it was I had... Do you have a blog?  "No", I said.  "It is just a Twitter account." Which brought me to realize that over the past year, I share more media on Twitter and Facebook than I really do by blog.  Why is this?  What is the difference?  What do we get from the immediacy of social media that we do not get from a blog, and what benefits do blogs have that we do not have from Tweeting?  To answer this, I have to explain the different channels I Tweet from and why.

These four different channels on Twitter work to make me happy and give back to my communities in different ways, but I am passionate about each of these topics.

@sfbikegal is a place where I share my love of bikes, cycling, and my art that features bikes

@cproppe is my personal Twitter account, where I share a mix of everything I see online and in life, much related to art, photography, education, my kids and my outings and Marin and Bay Area news

@greenpitcher is an account and blog called "The Green Pitcher" where I share what I read and learn about sustainability, green living, green art and sometimes cycling because it is a form of green transportation. Some of my organic posts from "Art on the Farm" also overlap into this category, as do posts about my art if if supports Marin Organic.
@artonthefarm is the account for a plein air and photography art group that I have participated with since 2005. They were started by a Marin Organic farmer in Bolinas, Alan Mart, who wanted to have a place where everyone could get out and be inspired on the land and create something while also giving back a percentage to Marin Organic. I started assisting with their blog in 2007. Currently only an active Twitter account, I post updates that support Marin Organic, organic farming and living. There is a hope that this group will start up again in the future, but we are taking a break at the moment.
 
Why do you need 4 different accounts?

Since we Tweet short bits frequently, it is much easier to only share about a single topic in a channel than to share everything, all the time.  It allows people who enjoy cycling to only follow me on the bike account and not have to hear about my entire life on another Twitter account.  It allows me to create lists of people that care about cycling and direct my messages only to that group.  I will be more likely to get responses from a group of 400 cycling advocates about a cycling question than I would on my own personal account.  The key is to follow all the cycling enthusiasts and groups on that one account and begin to engage and respond to them.  This is where you find you will learn more about cycling yourself, and find out what you need to know from other advocates.  It also allows me to share my bike related art with people who will more likely appreciate it. I learned about the group "Art Crank" and the Bike Art Poster Show they do each year.

Bike Poster History Minute from ARTCRANK on Vimeo.

You can also win contests online, just by tweeting a favorite photo on Instagram and Twitter. I won a bike from Clif Bar's contest by sharing a photo hiking with my son while we were eating Clif Mojo Bars. @ClifBar and @PublicBikes are great on Twitter and Instagram for cycling inspiration in the Bay Area and beyond.
The same is true for @greenpitcher and my other accounts.  By filtering what I share and who I follow, I can learn a lot about this topic from online media very quickly and with precision.

I can do a Twitter Search for "organic" and post things I find that day that are interesting on @artonthefarm.  I can follow organic companies and share their tweets of interest.  I can search for "bike art" and Retweet those findings to the bike channel.  The one thing I always do is research things and read them before I retweet them.  I won't retweet things I have not read myself.

 What is the downside to all this online tweeting and filtering and having different channels?

Well, to be honest, there is less writing going on.  I haven't spent time on my blogs as much because I am online all the time with Twitter accounts.  However, it has been a more connected time.  I have actually gotten to meet and interact with so many more people on Twitter than I ever did from my blogs.  There is a group of us in Marin that go to "tweetups", which are really just a night out for dinner or a Birthday celebration for one of our local friends.  We have really become friends online, from Twitter.  It's extremely gratifying.  This is not something I found from my blog writing.  The blog is more of a diary and tool for writing longer pieces about life.  Truly, a wonderful writer's tool.  I am here today, writing about Twitter and why I haven't blogged as much.  Obviously, this longer explanation on a blog is here because the format of a blog allows for a longer explanation and moment of deeper thought.

Are Blogger and Twitter both needed?

Absolutely.  I find all of these tools incredibly useful.  My art and life has been archived on a blog for almost a decade now.  If I ever want to write a book or turn this into a book for my kids, it will be doable.

What am I doing now?

My goals have changed in my life over the past two years, and I will say I learned a lot online to help me get here.  My career has moved back into digital design(which I have done since 1990) and Production Art for Organic Foods. I have studied packaging design at Academy of Art University, How University, Lynda.com and am updating my skills as needed with Typography on Skillshare.  The online tools out there for an artist or designer are truly incredible.
Life is possible online, but we still need to learn how to "be" in the real world. How to work with people and communicate with others. This is important too. On the fine art side, I have been working on a children's book about Mt. Tam and Coyotes, and it is still in progress, but I hope to finish it by the end of the year.
It's not the prime focus now, but I plan to complete it for my sons. I am enjoying co-parenting my sons with their father.  We have learned how to work together by being with our sons apart. Although we still reside in the same home, we split up and don't do things together as a family. Their father will take them one weekend, I will have them the next, and so on.  It works better this way, with very little drama, and we both feel good about who we share our time with, although these are very different groups of people.

In general, living my life online opened me up to many different people and places I could go outside of my relationship that had value, even when my own relationship did not. I believe the online path to real world change is significant, and truly a miracle for many of us who perhaps saw no other path out of our difficult lives. Being online actually does open up more paths than you can imagine.  Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have saved me over these passed years, as has Blogger. Each avenue has allowed me to travel, learn, grow and meet just the right people I needed to.

What a difference a couple years can make.  Who knows what we will see in 2020?  I am keeping my mind wide open for the possibilities.
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The Art of Saving Your Brain: Julie Love's "Disrupted"


http://revgalblogpals.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/disrupted.jpg

July 27, 2014

I just finished Julie Anderson Love's book, "Disrupted: On Fighting Death & Keeping Faith".
Julie is a sweet mother of Claire, who was in the Stapleton Ballet Nutcracker with my son, Blake, several years in a row.  During Nutcracker Season, parents press their noses up against the large window on Greenfield Ave. at the end of dance practices, listening to Tchaikovsky  in the dark as we await our agile angels.  Sometimes, this is the only time we talk to other parents and get a glimpse at the joy our children have while dancing before the big production the first weekend of each December.  I can't remember how I first spoke to Julie, but I do remember that she had to tell me she was hard of hearing at least once.  From then on, I went into my careful attention mode, making sure I was looking at her while speaking and extra loud.  I always loved seeing Julie at those pick up times and thought that she was a wonderful person- maybe someone I could become friends with if I wasn't so busy with my twin boys.

Several years passed, and I got a phone call.  At first I thought it was a prank caller or maybe a very young and mentally challenged woman.  The voice was super sweet, but the words were spoken almost like baby talk and I agreed to help this woman, site unseen, care for her pets while she was away on vacation because Lisa, another friend who I trust and love, had referred me to this family to help pet sit.

As I continued talking to Julie on the phone, we exchanged emails... This is when I realized it was Claire's mom, Julie Love, from the ballet school.  "Oh, Julie!  I know who you are!  You are Claire's mom!" I said with enthusiasm into the phone.  I hoped she understood me.  I was happy to know it was Julie and even more excited to help her with her needs.  I love pet sitting and here was a nice way to help someone I admired.

I can't recall how I had learned about Julie having survived from a brain tumor that caused her hearing loss.  I know someone told me about her book she wrote, and then I had looked it up online.  I planned on reading it and even mentioned it to my friend Peggy, who writes a blog about successful women (and the chocolate that they love!).  I thought it would be a remarkable interview, to write about this incredible survivor; someone right in our own community who had lived through so much trauma and took the time to write about it in a book.  I know, I know... your immediate thought is "Why would I want to read about something so awful?"  Well, the book is not awful, nor is the story.  Julie is a remarkable person with a passion for writing and it comes out in this book.  I did not want to put it down, and I felt so much like I was right there with her in so many ways.

I think Peggy has taken a hiatus from interviews on her blog, being a busy mom of three children, two of them teenagers.  Life with teens sweeps you into many, emotional teaching moments.  It is not that you don't have time to work or be as good as you were before, but you some how find your self wanting to share what time you can with these young adults who you can't imagine making the right decisions and going to College in just six years.  Time compresses the instant they are preteens and they don't always want mom to be near them, yet mom wants to share with them before they are completely on their own.  We seem busier and perhaps more frazzled and drained as we focus all our energy on helping these young people grow up and find the things they love to do.  We let go some of our friends, our jobs, our blogs and even our passions to put our hearts into the kids' needs.  Their passions suddenly become our passions.  My son loves theater, but I was always a shy kid, afraid of public speaking.  Go figure...  He turned me into someone more passionate about both theater and ballet.... and ballet is how I first met Julie.

So, as a busy mom, I was happy to have a phone call from Julie, offering me a simple job with animals, taking care of their family pets for a few days.  What wonderful pets they were! 
"Monkey" the cat, grey and white with green eyes, was so loving, and always purring and rubbing up against my legs.  I tripped on him a couple times!  He really likes to stay close to you.  A new and tiny bunny they had was unbelievably cute and soft.  Long, golden hair around his face and neck, and just the sweetest face ever.  I found myself wanting to photograph all the animals.

The beta fish was a stunning royal blue, the color of painted doors in Greece, sparkling by the water in the sun, next to stark white buildings.  He was alone in his bowl and I felt a bit sad for each of these creatures.  The fish in such a confined space, and the mouse, also alone in his cage with just a wheel and a tiny house he liked to hide in.  Mouse would only come out when I put down a bowl of fresh food, and eat only the sunflower seeds.  He'd dig through the other grains and pull out the large, gem shaped seed in Victory!  Occasionally, mouse would show off on the wheel, looking out at me every time.  It was remarkable to meet each of these creatures on their own level and find what they enjoyed during my short stay.

Monkey was easy- food, pets and getting to venture in and out the door while I was there.
The bunny seemed to enjoy the outdoor pen, getting to "jump" or test out his powerful, rear limbs that could not be tested in the small, indoor cage.  He seemed the most curious, checking out a watering can, peeking inside, nibbling an old broom and running around the pen, several times, as if scared by his own shadow.  When I went into the pen, the bunny would come close to my legs, just like Monkey, the cat.  Perhaps I provided some sense of comfort and security.  Amazing how in just a day or two, these two animals could realize they needed me and that I was comforting to them.  How on earth anyone gets along with out this unconditional love from a pet is any one's guess; it is truly a gift.  Pets are truly a gift.

The unspoken love from an animal is probably one of the best comforts to the sick, sad and injured.  I imagine Julie must adore those sweet animals and relate to them in more ways than most.  having hearing loss and feeling more alone and different might be what our pets feel too.  They want our love but must communicate in very different ways.  They can't always do everything the rest of us do.  They can't understand everything we say, yet they need and rely on us none-the-less.  They still love us.  They come running when we enter the house.  They wag a tail against the floor when we enter a room  They get more excited in their cage as we approach, curious about our presence, our voices, our actions, what foods we are eating or toys we might have.  They do a lot of waiting.  They have a ton of patience, and they don't speak to us with words, which we somehow perceive as "kindness".

You have to wonder if they really are thinking about us or not... but instinct tells us they care about their people more than we can imagine.  It is a truly amazing bond, which I am deeply thankful for.  I hope Julie receives as much joy and love from these animals as I had in just a few days with them.

When Julie, Greg and Claire returned from their trip, Claire was on crutches.  She had broken her leg at summer camp and seemed upset the night I saw her.  I told Claire how wonderful her animals were.  I was sorry she'd broken her leg and hoped she would learn to appreciate her limbs after this trauma.  I think in life, many times, we really do not appreciate what we have until we lose it.  In that way, any injury is a gift, because it forces us to appreciate our health.  Injury makes us seek health in the future, and for most of us, avoid things that are dangerous or beyond our physical abilities.

But what about when we have an injury that keeps us from returning to a normal life?  In Julie's book, "Disrupted", Julie reveals the gradual loss of most of her hearing from chemical treatments to kill a rare brain tumor she had when she was only 30 years old.  She shares how she slowly lost a job, precious sounds and moments with family and friends she used to share easily.  How at first, her mother seemed concerned and learned to sign, but then got lazy about it.  Many things were very frustrating and Julie was not capable of participating in life the way she had known it before.

Yet, "Disrupted" is a remarkable book; it is not a tale of "woe is me", but a sharing of a journey to conquer this tumor in the right way for Julie, and to save her brain so she could share with us in one of the most beautiful, human ways possible- to write.  To write down this story and share it is Julie's gift to all of us for we not only learn to understand the pain and frustrations of the hearing impaired and the cancer patient, but we see them through the eyes of a well educated theologian and preacher.  Julie's gift of understanding what our faith in God means is profound and yet simply told.  It is human and a remarkable testament to the power of believing in ourselves, doctors, the other humans in our lives, an "letting go to God".  In this way, Buddhism and believing in God come together in the moment.  We choose to pray to God in the very moment we need help most.  We pray.  We meditate.  We give in to the present.  We yield to the present.  In this basic practice, two religions collide.  Christianity and Buddhism join together to let us focus on a moment in time and our power of believing to help heal or focus on that present moment.

Raised Catholic, but having attended dharma talks and meditations at Spirit Rock in Marin County, I attest to the power of group prayer and a preacher or spiritual educator being able to soothe us and help us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves.  Prayer and meditation are truly quite similar when you think about it. Believing in both ways helps humans to deal with their lives, deaths, and all that we feel inside, each moment.  We are fortunate to feel so deeply and be able to share our feelings with others.  We are also fortunate to have our solitude; our ability to think on our own, alone and free.  Is this not what really unites us all, our ability to think, "alone"?  Our brain's unique ideas?

In this way, Julie Love's decision to "save her brain" regardless of the knowledge of potential hearing loss, and live to write and share her thoughts makes her more alive and special to me than many survivors.  It is a gift to us that she has been able to live and write and be herself.  She has a beautiful daughter now, Claire.  Kind, smart, funny and loving.  It is an uplifting story that I am so delighted to have become a small part of in my community.  Julie is currently a Reverend and parish associate at First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo.

I look forward to Julie's second book as she is a writer!  Like her daughter, Julie is funny, deep, silly and smart.  I loved her book.  I plan to gift it to family and friends this year.  Thank you for your gift, Julie!  Maybe I will have to write my own story down.  You are so encouraging.

With Love,

Colleen
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The Art of Rain: Salmon Spawning, Umbrellas, Puddles and more...

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The rains have come to Marin and California!
I told you they would... (see my last post about the drought).
Dog Walk in the Rain | Fairfax, CA | 2/8/14 (Aidan + Mesa)
I have been enjoying the rain so much, my Instagram stream of photos is full of rainy day images of raindrops, buckets, wet flowers and streets. I even was one of the 4 finalists in "Colors of the Week" on Instagram last Sunday for my B&W photo of a puddle in the rain.  Today, I took my middle schoolers to view the Leo T. Cronin Fish Viewing Area in West Marin. After 18 years in Marin County, and driving past Shafter Bridge hundreds of times, I realized I had never seen the salmon spawning and decided to take my sons. There were many others out to view these native fish, returning to their birthplace to spawn.  Click the thumbnails below to view our Salmon Spawing images from today:
Salmon Spawning 2014Salmon Viewing 2014Rain in Marin 2014Waterfall dropping into Lagunitas CreekSalmon Spawning 2014Bridge along waterfall into Lagunitas Creek
Male & Female Salmon Spawning 2014Pilgrimage to see the Salmon Spawning 2014Shafter Bridge, West MarinSalmon Pilgrimage II_ 2014Salmon Pilgrimage I 2014

Salmon Spawning 2014, a set on Flickr.
We bumped into the local Founder of Stapleton Ballet out for a walk with her husband. We also were lucky to be there when Candice, a volunteer with SPAWN, was alongside the creek, pointing out the unique fish and telling us what she knew about each one. One female's tail was completely white and she was very spotted. This apparently means she is an older fish, having been around the creek for a couple weeks now.  After the females release their eggs, they protect "the Redd"(the spot where their eggs are) from other females using it for up to 18 days before they die.  The newer females are darker with no torn up fins. The Males with white on their backs get this way when other males bite them to compete for females.  There is also a fungus that grows on the fish after they are bitten that appears white. It was absolutely incredible to see 2 foot long fish in the creek.  I wished I'd had my good camera with 300m lens!
Many years ago, I worked for a very brief stint with MMWD and the Fisheries Biologist, assisting with drawings of woody debris structures and computer work for a report on the fingerlings in the creek. This was a summer job and I enjoyed wearing waders, working alongside a Humboldt University Fisheries Student and learning how to find fish in the creek. ( Click here to see Gregory Andrew's report that many of us Seasonal helpers participated in via MMWD.)  What a thrill it was to share this with my sons today. If you'd like to go out and see the fish, you may find the directions to several viewing areas in Marin County, here. Stay dry and have fun!
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Send in the Cows... There ought to be cows.

October 18, 2013
12" x 24" oil on canvas.  Burbank Ranch, Tomales.
Finishing this commissioned painting today (please view my previous post to learn more about this commission), I added the tiny cows on the warm mountains behind the ranch houses and modified the lighting to hills on left.  I tried to take a better image of the cows, but not terribly successful:

Detail: Burbank Ranch.

Happy to be finishing on a Friday.

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The Art of Sophia Collier: Sound Waves to Form

Detail of "Dark Water", Carved acrylic ©2013 Sophia Collier
Sophia Collier is a Sausalito-based artist who works with computers, sound and enormous machines to create minimalistic art forms. It is a very complex process designed to achieve such a simple form we can find in nature, but once you see the results, it is highly impressive and there is vast beauty in the light and space art she is creating. Collier's original desire was to create a piece of water at a precise moment of time, similar to the way a painter recreates a landscape painting. However, to do this, Collier uses sound waves that she has hand selected; she uses their form to model the waves in the sculpture works. This allows her to sample sounds from anything or any time, past or present.

Collier's latest project is a collaborative work in which she is asking those residing along the Grand River in Michigan to share sounds and samples with her online. Collier will then select from this pool of sounds to create her piece that will be displayed at GRAM (Grand Rapids Art Museum) September 2013 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  It is always enjoyable for me to learn more about how we can collaborate as artists. When I attended CalArts, the Contemporary Music Composition students would frequently collaborate with the Experimental Animation students. It was a terrific way for them to learn how to film score and create dramatic and unique works they may not have normally aspired to create.

Want to participate or have a friend or family member in Michigan to share this with?  There are several ways to participate:

•  Visit Urban Remix and record/upload sounds online or via free phone app.  Urban Remix is a project conceived of and is directed by Jason Freeman, Michael Nitsche, and Carl Disalvo, who are professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, Georgia. It is made possible by the invaluable work of numerous students and designers, and supported in part by the Music Technology program, the Digital Media program, and the GVU center at Georgia Tech.

•  Upload a sound with Soundcloud online (or record sounds with soundcloud app via phone)please click the Soundcloud button here and join the group!


•  Download the Soundcloud apps for free here, and record sounds from your iPhone or iPad).

•  Share a Youtube video or other method of sharing captured sounds.  For this method, please email Sophia here.  Thanks for checking out this new project! -Colleen
Sophia Collier in the Studio from Sophia Collier on Vimeo
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Theater Art: San Rafael's Alter Theater +
Salvador Dali makes me Hot!


Friday, May 11, 2012

 

Today is Salvador Dali's Birthday  (May 11)

Win 2 tickets to Sat 5/12 performance of "Dali" show in San Rafael


Atavistic Vestiges After the Rain
He was born "Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech" at 8:45 on the morning of May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain in the foothills of the Pyrenees.  As a teenager and art student, I had the joy of visiting the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.  I was amazed with his dreamy and surreal creations, and the impressive size of many of the pieces.  We had used his iconic, melting clocks painting for our senior high school theme performance, "Time Warp".  I designed a t-shirt and painted a large banner that hung from the ceiling of my high school towards the end of my senior year.  I was definitely a graphic designer + marketing kid from a young age.


So, here were are now in 2012, a terrific independent theater company in San Rafael, "AlterTheater" is performing "References to Salvador Dali make me Hot", by two-time Obie Award winner and Oscar nominee Jose Rivera.  In honor of this great theater group and Dali's Birthday, I am giving away 2 tickets to this Saturday's show in San Rafael.  All you have to do is comment below what your favorite Dali painting is and why, and go ahead and "Like" AltherTheater on Facebook if you wish.  The winner will be selected at the end of the day Fri 5/11.
dali

Purchase tickets

A San Francisco Chronicle Pick!
San Francisco Examiner raves:
"Very moving....communicated with grace and wit by a sexy, passionate cast of actors." --Read the full review
Four Stars from Marin Independent Journal:
"Steamy 'References' entertains with emotion"--Read the full review
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