A portion of the interview about this creative duo was originally published in Happily Hooked digital magazine. Orange Barrel Industries is the collaborative art business of creative duo husband-and-wife printmaking team Hannah and Blake. They are a witty pair who got married in a series of art events. They share on their website, “At first, Blake thought Hannah was some kind of itchy, excitable midget and Hannah found Blake to be an uppity ascetic. It turns out, they were both right, but they learned to love each other, anyway. They bonded over their shared passions of printmaking, drawing, cooking and hard work.“ I had the opportunity awhile back to interview…
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Literacy Volunteer: Appreciating the Ease of Reading and Writing
This post originally appeared in 2007 on my old blog: Real Words for a Real Writer. It’s about my brief but memorable experience as a literacy volunteer. When I was about eighteen, I signed up as a Literacy Volunteer of Tucson. My work with the group didn’t last long (what can I say, I was eighteen and not exactly committed to anything for very long periods of time). However, it left a lasting impression on my life. Although I obviously knew that there were illiterate adults living around me, I hadn’t really understood until working with one what that meant on a daily basis. And I hadn’t understood until that…
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Recommended Essay Reading: The Artist as Culture Producer … and Thoughts on Creative Collaboration
The Artist as Culture Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is an essay collection edited by Sharon Louden in an effort to combat the stereotype that artists are working in studios alone, toiling away in solitary – even self-absorbed – pursuits. The essays are each by an artist who “reaches outside of the studio to extend creative energies and pursuits into his or her community.” She goes on to say she chose these artists for many reasons including their generosity and that “they inject creative culture into the cracks of society, where they alter the direction of small towns and large cities”. Each of the essays is as different…
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Dr(Owning) and S(Wallowing) in Depression
I originally wrote this post for Rebelle Society years ago. It remains relevant to my depression story today, so I wanted to share it again. It expresses how despite living with chronic relapses of depression over the past 25 years, I don’t always know in the beginning of each one what is going on. I think it’s something else, usually something that’s my fault, until I finally realize it’s depression again. Depression came back. It walked right in through the front door while I was busy guarding all of the windows and cracks. It ignored the sign warning that “danger, there’s a dog here to protect me”. It sidled up…
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Wisdom From Every Year of Life
100 Years: Wisdom From Famous Writers on Every Year of Your Life is a book that has short quotations about every year of life from birth through age 100. I flipped through it a few times before reading it in full. I checked out the selections for my current age. Furthermore, I checked certain ages that seemed to be important milestones in my life. I even glanced at friends’ ages. However, this morning I finally sat down and read it from cover to cover. When I did, I discovered that doing so offers more than the sum of its parts. There Is Wisdom in Every Age Joshua Prager carefully curated the…
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Musician Interview with Heather Schmid About Transformations
I’m continuing to dig through the archives of the old, sadly deleted, version of this blog. In doing so, I came across this musician interview with Heather Schmid. She’s a globally-minded opera singer. Back in 2016, she released an album called Transformations. I had the opportunity at the time to interview her about this album. Although this musician interview is old now, I don’t want to lose it. Therefore, I’ve decided to republish it again. I hope it’ll encourage people to take a listen to the album. Musician Interview: Heather Schmid Heather Schmid is the subject of this musician interview. If you aren’t familiar with it, then take a moment…
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Memoir Quotes: Borderlines by Caroline Kraus
Memoir quotes are often my favorite quotes. I really love reading memoirs. There is something so special about individual stories. In a memoir, the deeply personal becomes universal. We find what resonates for us. We read the words as though they are in our own voices. Somehow, one person’s story becomes the story of each of us. I’ve been digging through the archives of this blog to find items that were lost in a blog transition. I came across the following memoir quotes. They’re from a post I did in 2014 when reading the book Borderlines. Borderlines: A Memoir I recently read Borderlines: A Memoir by Caroline Kraus. This moving book tells the…
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Therapist Memoir: Annie Rogers’ Shining Affliction and Unsayable
This post is about two therapist memoir books. I originally published this as two separate posts, which I’ve combined and updated here. The therapist memoir The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma by Annie Rogers, PhD is one of my favorite books that I was assigned in grad school. I first read the book in one day. Then I read a big chunk of it for a second time shortly after. Then after that, I went back and checked out Rogers’ first book. It’s called A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy. It’s another therapist memoir from earlier in her career. About Annie Rogers, Therapist Memoir Author Annie Rogers…
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Dementia Memoir: Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words
This is a book review of a dementia memoir. I originally published this review here on the blog in 2014. As I update what was lost in my blog transition, I found that I wanted to share this again. The full title of this book is Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words: Travels with Mom in the Land of Dementia. That does a good job of summing up what this dementia memoir is about. The book, by Kate Whouley, is her experience with her aging mother as her mom declines into Alzheimer’s. Although that sounds sad, she manages to put a positive spin on the experience. Therefore, I found it…
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Just Girls: YA LGBTQ Book Review
Just Girls is a young adult LGBTQ novel that stands out to me as innovative and aware. Simultaneously, it touches on the topics that affect many teenagers as they enter the college scene for the first time. In other words, it isn’t just for the LGBTQQIA community. However, it doesn’t shy away from its role as part of the advocacy for that community. The Story of Just Girls Just Girls is the story about Ella Ramsey, a MTF transgender woman who is starting as a new student in college. She hasn’t come out to people there even though she has gone through the coming out process in her hometown. Therefore, she faces…
