Day 52 - TEDx Baltimore

January 30, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Photo by Bonnie Schupp taken from stage left and then mirrored in post processing. TedxBaltimore letters commissioned and rented from Feats and X's purchased from Woodland Manufacturing. See links at end of blog.

TED was conceived in 1984 by Richard Wurman, an architect and graphic designer who became aware of the coming together of technology, entertainment and design in today’s world (TED). Its mission:  “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world.” Its format includes speakers who share ideas with slides projected behind them in about 18 minutes each. From TED has sprouted many local conferences called TEDx, organized by communities who also believe creative ideas are worth spreading.

Today I was treated to a banquet of creative ideas and thinking at TedX Baltimore on the Morgan State University campus. For example, today there was Wally GBX who creates virtual geoglyphs, Jim Hendler who set out to prove Stephen Hawking wrong, Brian LeGette who provided an equation for evil and good,  Andrea Spilliadis who wants to unleash revolutionary imagination (and eradicate the cops in our heads), Shanaysha Sauls who claims we are “choking on carefulness,” Shuangyi Li who thinks we should dare ourselves more, Kayti Didriksen who praised the power of blind contour drawings, Lucas Benitez who is changing the plight of farm workers with the Fair Food Program, and Greg Cantori who presented a fascinating view of how to measure our quality of life (and it is not by measuring the GDP). And these are just a few examples of speakers besides spoken word artist and dancers.

Listening to these ideas today energizes me and leads my mind to make new connections. What a way to spend a day.

My gift was a banquet of creative ideas.

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TEDxBaltimore stage letters from Feat: http://www.featsinc.com
Stage X letters from Woodland Manufacturing: http://www.woodlandmanufacturing.com/painted-corafoam-letters.html

DAY 53 Positioning of Ifs

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 51 - Connections

January 29, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Once it fluttered

in gentle winds

green

whole and alive

connected to a system

rooted

Today it litters the

park path

brown

hunger-holes survive

connected by lacework

fragile

Now even after loss

it defies oblivion

transparent

with delicate beauty

connected to contradictions

The spaces and silences become the strength that connects.

Today’s gift is a fragile, lacy leaf.

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> DAY 52 TEDx Baltimore

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 50 - Shifting

January 28, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

A second or just a few minutes, a brief time — when light falls in a certain way or wind lifts the corner of a curtain—reveal something in a new way. These are fleeting moments offered to us every day—like the way light catches in a friend’s eye as she shares a story with you or a shadow falling on a piece of trash—that can stroke something deep and unknown inside. Some people accept those moments and then release them; others hold on to them and summon them in a future creative moment. Some never notice.

Today I poured water into a glass to take my vitamin D and for two minutes, the sun had positioned itself to cast shadows, concentric circles, patterns and highlights on the kitchen counter. Knowing that this scene would not last more than a couple of minutes, I forgot about taking my pill and I grabbed my camera. I think this is part of the photographer’s belief that she can capture time and create a tangible instant.

Regardless of my hubris, moments like this do much to change the way I see things—forever. In the future, I will not hold this glass or swallow a vitamin D pill without envisioning a scene of concentric circles and highlights on the kitchen counter, the result of the juxtaposition of sun, glass and surface during a narrow opening of time when I just happened to be there. These fleeting moments reveal new dimensions, new layers that shift my perception forever.

My gift today was a moment.

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> DAY 51 Connections

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 49 - Drips

January 27, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

This morning I held my breath, trying to anticipate the exact split second that the icicle would release its next drop. Sometimes my mind was synchronized with the next drip; other times I completely missed.  The important thing, however, was the excitement of anticipation. And the process of being very much in the moment.

As long as we don’t interfere with the timing, we are playing by the rules. Children often do not get this. Anticipation drives impatience and they don’t follow the “rules” until they learn the joy of waiting. I remember my father talking about when he was a young child and had figured out there was no Santa Claus but he had discovered his mother’s secret hiding place for Christmas gifts. It was in one of her dresser drawers, which she kept locked. My father being a curious but very smart kid had figured out that it might be possible to remove the drawer above the locked one and to peek into the locked drawer. As it turned out, the configuration of his mother’s dresser was such that this was possible. And one year, he saw all his Christmas presents before Christmas. He said he only did this once.

I suspect that he had learned the joy of anticipation, how we Velcro each moment to our imagination box and then build and create stories.  It is good to change speed to slow motion like the drips forming on an icicle for it is during time’s foreplay that we savor what is to come. And this is good.

Today’s gift was anticipation.

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> DAY 50 Shifting

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 48 - Tenacious

January 26, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Whenever I walk in nearby Downs Park, I always leave richer than when I entered; this Anne Arundel County park offers me a sensory feast of sight, sound, smell and touch. I like to venture off the paved paths and explore those less traveled. On one of my favorite dirt paths, I pass a number of beech trees. Unlike the oak and maple cousins and other deciduous trees that long ago released their hold to drop their leaves, the beech clutches tenaciously to its leaves as days grow shorter and colder.

In January, these dry brittle brown leaves curl into themselves as if seeking warmth, as if retreating inward like my grandmother wore her body in the winter of her life. As the path curves to the right, I always stop at one particular beech tree and listen, sometimes holding my breath if the breeze is a mere whisper. Today when the wind rustled, it stirred all the curled leaves to shiver and perform a chorus of paper bells, sound spiraling outward in the silence of the damp woods. My grandmother too made music as her shrinking body curled in bed and she sang hymns.

Next spring, when new buds begin to appear, these leaves will let go and become part of the earth. But until then, even while they are dying, they create peaceful music on a dreary winter day for anyone who steps off the main path and stops to listen.

This day gave me a gift of a paper bell chorus.

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> DAY 49 Drips

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html