Week in Paradise

I have really enjoyed the time I've had to spend with Megan and her family. Anton went into work a week ago last Saturday so that he could have time to go with us to the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art. There was an exhibition, "The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700," that she wanted us to see. After breakfast and Jonathan's morning nap, we met Anton at College Park (where he works) and took the metro down to the Smithsonian Mall. It was a great adventure--Meg, Anton, Jonathan and me--middle of the day and with a cool breeze blowing--we sat on benches and ate sandwiches Meg had packed. The Washington Memorial was at one end of the park and the White House at the other. Jon waundered happily up and down the grass as Anton gradually herded us across the Mall, through the Sculpture Garden, and into the National Gallery of Art.

Now began the most charming part of the day. Megan and Anton and I started looking at different exhibits as we came into the building, kind-of-sort-of heading in the general direction of the exhibition we had come to see. We meandered back and forth, seeing each other and then suddenly I had no idea where Meg and Anton were. I had Jonathan and the stroller. They both had a moment of freedom. It was a good trade.

I wasn't worried about finding them--or about making sure that I had lots of time to see the "Sacred Made Real" presentation. What I did get to do was to follow Jonathan around and watch him take in the people and sights he had never experienced before. I also got to take lots of pictures. Lots of pictures. It was cool inside and there were enough of the-people-in-charge-of-telling-the-people-who-are-lost-which-direction-they-need-to-go located around Jon and me that I didn't really ever feel anxious about ultimately discovering the location we needed to find. We went up in elevators and down some moving walk-ways. We sauntered through both of the Art Gallery gift shops. A bathroom magically appeared just as Jonathan needed a diaper change--and brass-fitted water fountains provided drink and momentary distraction as I got a few sips of water and Jonathan got both hands wet playing with the faucet.

I finally got to a place where both Meg and I had reception and I was able to reach her cell phone. Unwilling to try and find out where Jon and I were located so that she and Anton could join us, I told her that we would meet them at the Spanish exhibit we had made the trip to experience. When we all caught up with each other, Jonathan laughed with excitement as he sang to Megan all about the wonderful stuff that he had seen since he had last been with her. He hugged her and then began to "Ahhhheeahhhheeahhhh!" up and down his three note scale. People around us looked startled as Jon's sudden cascade of high pitched warbling hit the air. The people who were guarding the exhibit also looked worried--were we going to take this small, LOUD, person into the "Sacred Made Real" enclave? The three of us stood together with Jon--who by now had lapsed in to quiet as he scampered about, charging up and down the length of the two story window that made up the wall of the huge hallway. There were cars there and trucks there and people and cars and cars and CARS! Anton and I went in first and I walked quickly about the small collection--I came back out and sent Megan in to join Anton. Jon and I watched the cars drive along the street below us and then I allowed him the forbidden treasure of my cell phone. He stood right next to me as I sat on the floor. I had the phone in my hand and he saw it. Reaching for it hesitantly, he looked at me: "Can I see it? Can I touch it?" I handed it to him and he sat down next to me--silent as the night, wonder ablaze on his small face.

I got tired of it before he did, so we got up and began to walk across the great spaces of the open cross-walk. There were bright reds above us in an immense geometric mobile and before us, a set of three giant, open-center disks balanced on their vertical edges in front of a two-story glass window. Megan and Anton finished walking through the exhibit and came to meet us. We made our way back to one of the endless dining areas and shared an apple-walnut muffin and four different kinds of gelato. It was very late for Jonathan by then--of course no afternoon nap.

We arrived home in time for Meg to feed and then bathe Jonathan before he collapsed in bed. I settled down to edit my photographs. Anton and Megan did Anton and Megan stuff. It was an entirely satisfactory day. I came to help Megan to get ready for her trip to Europe--but I am going home rested and ready to face what my home in Florida holds for me. I have a math final on Monday evening, an Intro to Photography critique session on Tuesday morning--and all of the laundry that hasn't been washed, dried, folded or put away while I have been in Maryland, Brent has been working long hours, and Nathan has been studying for his own finals coming up next week.

It has been a sweet experience for me to see Megan instruct and interact with Jonathan on such an intimate, quiet level. The two of them flow together as one unit--rejoicing in the discoveries they each make during their days together. Anton is an attentive and worried father--finding frustration in not having enough hours in each day to do everything that he would want to do as he works his full-time job, fulfills his calling as the Bishop's executive secretary, spends time at home as Megan's husband and sweetheart and Jonathan's father. It is an uncomfortable balancing act that I don't think every really becomes easier--only different, as the years pass and his abilities--and his responsibilities--increase.

Megan and I got to work on our Ernest project, too. I have downloaded a sketch of Ernest's family that Meg has done--charming characters. We worked through the story prose, too. I like it more and more. Tonight she expressed delight at the chance to work creatively with someone on her art. Her days are filled with Jon's needs. It is easy to let go of the personal interests and skills that also require time and effort and attention. I do not think that she will be as lazy as I have been. Her spirit clings to her artistic, inventive compulsions--I think that it is one of the things that keeps her able to focus and remember who she is: an individual of immense talent and great nobility. I am excited to hear what she has to teach me about Ernest's new game: robin rocks.

Artist's Statement for my Intro to Photography final portfolio

At the beginning of my final portfolio project for my Introduction to Photography class this semester, we are required to have an "Artist's Statement." While this sort of grand introduction to my work effectively assumes that my work is worthy of the title of an "artist," my joy in writing leaves no room for false modesty. I am an artist. I have always been an artist and will always be so. Just as I will always be a "dancer" and a "master teacher"--titles that I cherish, I could never have been anything but an artist from the moment that I was born to parents who, themselves, made every day a creative masterpiece.

I like how this turned out. Nathan read it and offered me the supreme compliment: "Mom, I don't know anyone who writes like you do. You make the reader feel what you are saying." Trust me when I admit that I am a more accomplished writer than I am black and white photographer--but at this point I am better at composing and taking a photograph on black and white film, developing that film myself, and then making prints from those negatives than I was when I began this class. I much prefer writing about the experience to actually slodging through the whole thing . . . it takes time and skill that I don't care to invest.

But learning that is a good thing to know.

Artist’s Statement

While I was in high school, I felt a compulsion to learn and do everything possible. I danced, ran, wrote in my journal, composed essays, sang in choirs and as a soloist, played the flute and the piano, acted in plays, edited our high school yearbook, read voraciously, painted with watercolours, stenciled butterflies along the walls of my bedroom and sketched (mostly horses) in the margins of my calculus and chemistry homework. I was—I realize now—obsessed with the need to make sense of (and to find a plausible reality within) the constantly changing sensibilities of my teenage world. Our family moved often because of my father’s work. I attended three different schools my 8^th grade year. Outside of me, there was nothing stable—inside of me, I could find order and completeness. I could not know where I might be living next year, but I could learn how to safeguard my feelings by closely reading the faces of new classmates and to immerse myself in a protective cocoon of music, books, words and art.

Nancy Kathleen Burton Wagstaff

Star Valley High School graduation portrait

My mother, who was herself a gifted teacher, pianist, musician, writer, seamstress, and artist, set the standard for my personal expectations. We were given talents, she reminded us, so that we could serve and share with others. That attitude freed me from the need to create perfect works of art, play perfect piano sonatas, or understand completely a subject matter—before I could enjoy and share my discoveries.

Carolyn Eva Wagstaff Hendry

Self Portrait for 50^th Birthday

“Reflection”

This freedom has permitted me to find joy in the process of taking, developing and printing black and white photographs. I am not good at patience, but I have become good this semester at finding satisfaction in the slow, steady improvement of my ability to create in this medium. It is a medium that requires skill and attention to detail. It is a medium that I am beginning to grasp and starting to enjoy for its own sake. Working with black and white photography has increased my attention to how light and shadow interact and to intricate shapes in nature and in my own man-made surroundings. I am far from being an accomplished black and white photographer. I am closer, though, to seeing better, yet another aspect of who I am and what I may yet become.