Seattle Iranian Festival

Seattle Iranian Festival

The Seattle Iranian Festival is an annual event for my family. My husband got his Master’s degree in Persian literature, and through his studies we were introduced to the local Persian community.

scarf

Each year we reconnect with old friends, and savor the amazing food.

cooking-demonstration

Art, colors, texture, music, beauty everywhere…

henna-boxes
Calligraphy
dancing

Each year Gem is made to feel like a princess, as our friends tell her they remember when she was just tiny.

She soaks up the attention  –

face painting

and we all know how much she loves to have her face painted.

queen of the mermaids

But you needn’t be connected to the local Iranian community to enjoy the Seattle Iranian Festival. Free, welcoming, open to all, this event will open your eyes to a beautiful culture that is not well understood in our country.  It comes around every year. Give it a try next June.

Iranian-Festival
Women Take Over – Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris

Women Take Over – Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris

Women are often well represented in art museums, or at least their bodies are. They are pinned right there to the wall.

Women Take Over - Seattle Art Museum - CoffeeJitters.Net
Ensemble of posters, Guerrilla Girls American artists, active since 1985 variable Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris, T2011.206.101

Women artists are not so well represented

The current show at the Seattle Art Museum takes aim at that issue. Anchored on the groundbreaking Paris exhibition, Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Elles puts the focus on the vision and craft of female artists. Just as our understanding of history changes, expands, and takes on new depth and texture when the voices of women are added, so to does the addition of female artists change our understanding of art history, as well as informing history itself.

Seattle Art Museum

This show does not attempt to represent women from all cultures everywhere throughout history. The scope and breadth of such an ambitious project could no more adequately represent women around the world, than it could men. Just because female artists were largely ignored does not mean they were not prolific. This is a showcase of mostly European female artists in the 20th and 21st Centuries. There is a need to address art created by women of other cultures and times, but that necessitates not just one, but many more shows. I hope someone gets busy curating some of those shows soon.

The Seattle Art Museum is coordinating with a number of organizations and venues throughout the Seattle area to celebrate women artists, ongoing through January 2013, including musical events, films, lectures, and a symposium.

Women Artists - Espagnoles - Natalia Gontcharova - CoffeeJitters.Net
Espagnoles, (1920-1924) Oil on canvas Natalia Gontcharova Russian, 1881-1962 36 1/4 x 28 3/4in. (92 x 73cm) Overall h.: 37 3/8in. (95cm) Overall w.: 29 15/16in. (76cm) Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris; AM 3111 P, T2011.206.135

Elles showcases the work of more than 75 women artists. I’m tempted to wax on philosophically about each of these pieces that I’ve selected, but each time I return to these images, I have something additional to say. I’ll never get this post up at this point, so I’ll just leave you with a few of my favorites. If I could take one home and just sit and stare at it all day long, it would Espagnoles (above).  It just pulls me in.

La Chambre Bleue - Suzanne Valadon - CoffeeJitters.Net
La Chambre Bleue (The Blue Room), 1923 Oil on canvas Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon) (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon) French, b. 1865, Bessines-sur-Gartempe, France; d. 1938, Paris, France 35.4 x 45.7 inches (90 x 116 cm) Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris State purchase and attribution 1924, T2011.206.1

On the other hand, there is, La Chambre Bleue (The Blue Room), above. I hated this piece at first. It was featured on much of SAM’s promotional material, and I couldn’t figure out why. It really bugged me. But, the more I look at it, the more I see.  The picture has grown on me, and now it’s one of my favorites.

the frame - Frida Kahlo - CoffeeJitters.Net
The Frame, (1938) Oil on aluminum, reverse painting on glass and painting frame Frida Kahlo Mexican, 1907-1954 11.2 x 8.1 inches (28.5 x 20.7 cm) Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris State purchase and attribution, 1939, T2011.206.48

Frida Kahlo lived in my imagination as a larger than life figure. Her self portrait on the wall, at eye level, stopped me short. It was so much smaller than I expected. And tangible. Suddenly, behind the tiny painted glass, she was less mythical, and more a woman, with hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. She became real. And maybe that’s part of the point of the exhibit, as well. Beyond drawing our attention to these amazing works by female artists, this show reminds us that women in art, whether subject, artist, consumer, or all three, are individual people. Not objects, myths, or concepts; just people, connecting with other people.

FTC disclaimer: I received free admission to the Seattle Art Museum, and permission to take photographs of the exhibits. 

Blogging – and women’s history

Blogging – and women’s history

blogging and women's history

People ask me what my blog is about, and every time I pause. I know I’m supposed to have an elevator speech prepared, I guess it’s time I start thinking about that.

This blog has been through so many iterations. I started the first CoffeeJitters blog on LiveJournal back in 2001. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than ten years since that first blog post. A lot has changed over that decade.

CoffeeJitters has been a single girl making her way in the world blog, a wedding blog, an infertility blog, a photography blog, a quitting my job and going back to school full time blog, a wow! I’m pregnant! blog, a mommy blog, a cancer blog, and a relearning how to dream after cancer blog.

Mostly, it’s a love letter to my daughter and husband, and an ongoing autobiography. It is my story, and my practice honing my voice. It is my chance to be heard.

I think in a way, that’s what a lot of us bloggers are doing. I keep picturing all the bloggers of the world at their computers furiously typing away in a clackity-clack version of the Whos that Horton heard, yelling at the top of their lungs, “We Exist!”

Blogging allows us to make our mark on the world. To show that we exist. To have a voice and have it heard. To contribute to the ongoing story of the human race.

My studies recently have centered a great deal around women’s history throughout the world, and the difficulty involved in truly understanding what a woman’s life was like. Mens stories were recorded, by men. Women’s stories… not so much.

I look at blogging in comparison to that and I think: what a gift we are leaving for future generations. Is there any comparable resource in history to the wide range of women’s stories now available? Sure, there’s a good deal of exaggeration. That also exists in our history books. But there is so much more variety of stories and lifestyles represented. I’m proud to be a part of this movement. I’m so happy that future generations will have such a wealth of information about their ancestors – us. (On second thought, maybe I’d better go clean up a few of my posts)

 

Ultimate Blog Party 2012

Courage Night

Courage Night

I have been invited to participate in Courage Night, an author event sponsored by the Young Survival Coalition where 5 young survivors of breast cancer will read from their books, followed by a book signing. Well, in my case, I will read from my blog. I’m beside myself with excitement about this event, and a little nervous. I hope all my friends in the Seattle area will come to support me.

I’m so honored to be included in this group of amazing writers.

I was also a little perplexed about how to gracefully manage the whole signing of books part at the end. It’s not like you can sign a blog. And the other authors are donating their proceeds to YSC…   Finally, last night I got that little light bulb over my head. Why don’t I have some of my photos printed, and sell those? Then I’ll have proceeds to donate, and something to sign.

So which photos?

I picked a few, and I’m going to narrow it down again to a selection of four. Which ones do you like?

Poppy bud - courage night

1.

blooming poppy - courage night

2.

reflection lake - courage night

3.

market - courage night

4.

turnagain pass - courage night

5.

dandelion - courage night

6.

Courage Night

And here’s the flyer for Courage Night. If you’re in the Seattle area, stop by and say hi. I’d love to see you!

courage night

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BlogHer

BlogHer

For the past five years in a row, I’ve found myself in a bit of a funk come mid-summer. It’s a bit childish, for sure; this funk is all about jealousy. I’m missing the BlogHer Conference. This time of year, every year, bloggers from the far corners of the planet converge on a selected city to meet each other in person, drink, discuss tricks of the trade, and show off their high priced footwear.

This year, right now, they are in New York City.

The city of dreams.

The city so nice they named it twice.

The Big Apple.

Right at the top of my list of places that I want to visit.

The tweets and blog posts are rolling in with updates on the shenanigans and tom-foolery, and I’m enjoying the opportunity to live vicariously – to a point. Part of me is still pouting.

There has always been a good reason why I couldn’t go: pregnancy, a new baby, cancer, and most significantly, no money.

This time of year has also become a time of resolve – of promises to self. One way or another I’ll go next year, I promise myself. If I put away $100 a month starting now… yeah, right. If I had a spare $100 a month, it would be making a very small dent in some Very Large Bills. Or buying a lot more shoes.

Each year I promise myself I’ll find a way, one way or another, to go next year. The truth is that I make a lot of promises to myself. Making use of that gym membership, walking every day, eating more vegetables, getting out of debt (snort), scrubbing the toilet more frequently… And I let myself off the hook for those promises quite easily.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep? Sure. Sounds good. So about eating more vegetables…

Instead of promising myself that I will go next year, this year I’m participating in the NoGo BlogHer blogparty and The Blog Hop.

When did you start blogging?
I’ve been blogging off and on since 2001, mostly off until the past 5 years.

Why did you start blogging?
A friend got me started. In those days it was called keeping an online journal, and mine was on livejournal. It was much more insular then, and the posts were privately shared with a small community of other writers. I started because I loved having people to read, and comment on, my writing.

What is one thing you are going to do this week that is WAY cooler than going to BlogHer?
Play tickle monster with my 16 month old daughter

Share a post that you think says a lot about you or is your favorite.
Stuffed Bra

 

bird-3