iPhone Artwork Lady — I Have Obtained 14 Awards within the 2023 Julia…

I Have Obtained 14 Awards within the 2023 Julia Margaret Cameron Worldwide Awards for Girls Photographers!  The works above will all be on show beginning in mid-April on the Fotonostrum Gallery in Barcelona, Spain, together with works from different award winners from across the globe. I hoped I might determine a technique to attend the opening, however I can’t.

I acquired phrase about these awards on the shut of 2022. However to say that the information was overwhelming could be placing it mildly. Because of this I’ve waited till now to share the information right here.

Following the lack of my residence, studio, all my instruments, my backyard and all my work to the Almeda wildfire, I drove a motorhome I purchased to dwell in after the fireplace 11,000 miles round america. I immersed myself in nature, visited outdated pals, and requested them for assist in recovering my thoughts, my identification, my sanity.

Once I returned in June of 2022 and arrange camp in my motorhome on a hill in Ashland, Oregon, I used to be largely nonetheless in a state of shock and bewilderment. Confounded and flabbergasted. I spent the summer season strolling round Ashland connecting with businesses set as much as assist wildfire survivors and seeing pals. But it surely was scorching, uncomfortable dwelling in a single place in a motorhome, and I used to be all the time anticipating extra hearth. I felt under no circumstances grounded. All the time afraid. 

By the point it began getting chilly once more I used to be nonetheless tenting. Within the cooler days, I started to think about, nevertheless tentatively, that I’d in the future share some cellular photos once more. Perhaps some from my journey, a few of my meditations and deep experiences of each ache and regular transformation. However, I nonetheless felt so susceptible. So discombobulated. So tenuous about whoever I had thought I used to be earlier than the fireplace. So unclear about who I’d grow to be as a senior artist who had misplaced all proof of her earlier life and her work.

It was in that mind-set that I made a decision, one November morning, to ship a few of my cellular photos to the Worldwide Julia Margaret Cameron Awards competitors for ladies photographers. The entries didn’t value a lot – an enormous motivator since I’m broke now. Why not? I considered my entries as a form of trial balloon, notably the pictures I entered from the Almeda Firewalk Sequence that I’ve been engaged on since 2021.

I anticipated nothing and figured that if something I despatched obtained any form of consideration from the juror, Barbara Davidson (a girl whose brave pictures I’ve admired for many years), possibly I might reinvest in pondering of myself once more as a dwelling photographer and cellular artist. If not, I might simply carry on ingesting my manner from in the future to a different, questioning once I ought to simply pull the plug on this life.

Getting the information that not one or two – however nearly ALL – of the entries I submitted had acquired awards put a severe dent in my stupor. For a few days, I danced round on Fb and known as and informed outdated pals. I couldn’t have felt extra delighted or extra affirmed in my creativity and I took the awards as proof that I hadn’t truly misplaced all my talent even when I didn’t consider that myself. I misplaced all the pieces else, proper?

However the factor about trauma restoration is that it’s something however linear.  Survivors don’t simply go from unhappy to elated and keep there. We stay afraid. Shocked. Suspicious. Uncertain. And isolation can simply stay our greatest pal. We all know how dangerous we nonetheless really feel. And we all know how everybody who is aware of us simply needs us to really feel good once more and return to the place and who we have been earlier than the trauma. They’re uninterested in listening to in regards to the ache. So we cease telling them about it. We get quiet and we conceal out.

Therefore … the time it’s taken for me to really feel as much as making this put up right here at the moment.

I informed my pal, John, this morning that during the last month I’m beginning to really feel  that my thoughts may very well be therapeutic. A bit. After two-and-a-half years. Sure, I’m nonetheless the iPhoneArtGirl. Sure, I nonetheless make cellular images and cellular artwork nearly day-after-day. And possibly, simply possibly, I’ll in the future be capable of courageously share extra right here than an awards announcement.

Tomorrow morning, I’m planning to enterprise out to a speed-dating occasion on the Medford Library. I don’t know what’s going to occur there however it’s my hope to have a couple of minutes of dialog with personal foundations and authorities funders who I can think about might use the Almeda Wildfire Sequence to serve their stakeholders. I’ll be in search of companions who would possibly see it of their pursuits to assist me take all of the ache and the transformational presents I’m beginning to expertise into neighborhood conversations with their stakeholders in communities of all sizes across the state.

I do know there are folks like me all throughout Oregon who must re-connect rather more substantively with their neighbors so all of us can BELONG TOGETHER AGAIN even when the political trance has folks believing we will’t. There are such massive local weather, environmental, housing, medical care, instructional, economical, moral and non secular challenges forward. We can’t meet them in isolation.  

If you happen to learn this far, I thanks warmly on your time, your consideration, and your care. Namaste.