Monthly Archives: October 2013

“Stand tall and proud, if you love this place.”

Having a bad day? Life got you down? Watch and listen to this song by 15-year-old High River resident Hannah Shields as she sings “When The River Starts to Rise” about hope and resilience in the face of overwhelming adversity.

“Hold you head up. Put a smile on your face.
Stand tall and proud, if you love this place.”

Most of the rest of the world has already forgotten the devastating floods that affected tens of thousands of people near Calgary this past summer, but the town of High River is still rebuilding and life is far from ‘normal’ for those living and working there.

She started work on the song a day or two after she and her family evacuated their home with little more than the clothes on their backs. Hopping from friend’s house to hotel every day or two, not knowing what was happening to their home, she was resilient. After finally getting clearance to return to their home weeks later, her room had been under water and most everything she was familiar with was destroyed. Except her guitar, which they had managed to store on the top level of the house before they departed. She retrieved it, and was happy. She was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and she “will refuse to sink.”

Her song was made a reality with the support of a great team of friends and family, Director Trevor Smith says shooting the video was a way to “keep our mind off the struggle of rebuilding”. While you may shed a tear (or start to sob) watching When the River Starts to Rise, know that Hannah has helped you to be a bulwark against future troubles.

“Hold you head up. Put a smile on your face.
Stand tall and proud, if you love this place.”

Ken Laycraft

Stuart and Denise Robbins

Jonathan Frostad

Ann and Klaus Pohl

Wendy O’Laney

Angela Stoddard & Tyler Atkinson with Kayla, Odin and Owen Atkinson

Kara Johnson with her kids Talmann Frostad, Konlan Frostad and Tierney Frostad

Herman Groenwold

Rick and Barb Weiss

Jason & Shauna Nolan, Hayden Nolan, Hannah Shields

Disclaimer: Hannah is my niece. I’ve lived in High River. My mother, grandmother, and brother’s families are featured in the video. I’m a proud Uncle.

Maxim Vakhovskiy’s Black Venus Portraits

Wolf Whistle and Cat Calling Awareness

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Photography student Hannah Price was first catcalled shortly after moving to Philadelphia in 2009 and was thrown off guard. She reacted by taking the portraits of the men who were doing the cat calling and has put together a gallery exhibit entitled “City of Brotherly Love”.

NPR’s Codeswitch as an interview with her titled A Photographer Turns Her Lens On Men Who Catcall, and the Morning News as a piece titled My Harassers.

A video with the photographer done for her exhibit at the Stockton Art Gallery is worth viewing as well.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh took her displeasure of having to suffer this behaviour nearly daily to the streets themselves. She began a series of posters she put up around her Brooklyn neighbourhood as her way of speaking back to her harassers and this has spawned the Stop Telling Women to Smile project. After a successful Kickstarter campaign last month, she is taking the posters on the road. You can also buy some posters to put up in your neighbourhood too.

There are stories all over the web from women who do not appreciate this behaviour: a project last year simply called Catcalled collects the experiences of a set of women over a set period of time, and blogger Nic has a well articulated article on her experiences.

Have you been catcalled or wolf whistled? How did it make you feel? What is an acceptable form of compliment in your opinion? On the flip side, men, do you wolf whistle and if so, why?

Where does a mother end, and her child begin?

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Ana álvarez-errecalde‘s latest work, SIMBIOSIS/Symbiosis, shows a mother breastfeeding a child, linked at the hip. So integrated are these two beings, they are a single identity, that of Spider-Man.

Does a mother retain her self when she has a child? Is she so completely absorbed into the child’s world that she no longer has her own identity? Can she find a balance, or should she wait until the child is grown? Are mothers Superheroes?

Mothers of the world, how does this image speak to you?

ana álvarez-errecalde’s Simbiosis

I recently shared another piece of Ana’s artwork, Birth of My Daughter, which has been getting a lot of attention around the world. May her images continue to resonate in the hearts and minds of all who view them.

Teach Me How To Breastfeed Rap Video

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Tanefer Lumukanda is a hospital-based Lactation Consultant who wanted to explore new ways in educating and encouraging new moms all over on how to breastfeed. She came up with a Rap Video: Teach Me How to Breastfeed (also on Youtube).

She writes about the experience at the MomsRising blog.

For more information on Breastfeeding see Jack Newman’s resources and the Government of Canada’s top reasons to breastfeed, or contact your local La Leche League.

“I open, I transform, I bleed, I scream and I smile.”

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In 2005 artist Ana Álvarez-Errecalde responded to a recurring dream she was having and decided to take self portraits of herself, and her newborn daughter. The resulting images she has titled “Birth of My Daughter (or El Nacimiento de Mi Hija)”

Ana Alvarez-Errecalde on the birth of her daughter says: “I open, I transform, I bleed, I scream and I smile”

I am moved to share her photos because I feel birth is a monumentally inexplicable alteration of reality and in our culture it is too rarely revealed as such. If you are having a child, please explore your options of how your family can truly experience the beauty of birth.

If you are curious about the origin of the images, please watch the short documentary “Umbilical Self-portrait” by MiNuShu.