Red-shouldered Hawk on the Fence and a Bicycle

Day After Christmas Presents

Crane in my driveway enjoying lunch.

Red-shouldered Hawk just a block away.

It has been a very long time since I let myself take time and write about everything. Of course, everything would take a great number of centuries to document, so I will skip all of the weeks that I have missed and just write about today.

It is the day after Christmas. It is Monday. Brent and Nathan went to canoe on Peace River and look for fossils. Brent is, at this moment, on the internet identifying a Pleistocene hind deer leg bone. "Well, that was easy!" (direct quote). Nathan spent much of the day feeling frustrated since there were quite a few other groups also looking for fossils in the same bend of the river. Someone would yell "Hey! I found a megladon tooth!" "Hey! I did, too!" and Nathan would groan "Augh! I'm not finding anything." just loud enough for Brent to hear. They both came home with a large bag of odd-shaped black 'rocks'. Brent had a great time looking for fossils and using his new (used, but new to us) aluminum canoe. Nathan had a good time being with Brent and splashing about in the water and mud. He is 22 and a college Junior, but still, at heart, he is the boy who used to scout around each new house we moved into until he could announce "This is my mud spot! No one else can play in this mud." Actually, I think he is in his room right now, surrounded by tubs full of Legos--which, of course, no one else can play in.

Hibiscus acetosella full bloom that I planted from wild seed.

I worked on my Hibiscus acetosella project. It has been a wonderfully fun hobby this semester. Now, though, I am late in getting a finished project ready to submit to my horticulture professor. It is an independent study--under the guise of auditing one of his Botany classes--so I con't really even have to turn anything in. My pride pricks at me, though, having promised something solid and not yet possessing a finished product to turn in.

Wild Hibiscus acetosella--two blocks away.

After a few hours of that, I had to get outside. I took my bike and pedaled slowly around the neighborhood. I passed a huge bush with glossy, deep green leaves and some really cool coral red flowers. I didn't recognize it--so I will go back later and take pictures of it so that I can do what Brent does--he with dead bones, me with Florida fauna.

The most memorable part of my day was the chance to photograph a Red Shouldered hawk who was sitting on a chain-link fence at the side of the road. He watched me ride by. I watched him as I rode by. Then I rode home and got my camera. By the time that I had cycled back, the hawk was still waiting.

The hawk and I see each other--I am impressed by him; he pretty much ignores me.

At the end of the day, this is what I see before I go back inside for the night.

Of course I put my bike back into the garage, take the camera out of the basket and bring it in to get the photographs off of the memory card and into my computer. Also, the red Jeep is in the driveway as soon as Brent and Nate get home from Peace River. The canoe comes off the Jeep, Brent and Nathan come inside for dinner, and . . . well, I don't know exactly where the crane goes for the night. I know that she'll be back tomorrow. And tomorrow I can begin to work on the huge pile of laundry that Nate and Brent brought back with them from their trip.

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.