From the brochure…
• 36 million people, approximately 17 percent of adults in the United States, have a hearing loss.
• 60 percent of people with hearing loss are between the ages of 21 and 65.
• More than 20 million Americans have hearing loss from noise.
• More than 59,000 military are on disability status for hearing loss from current conflicts.
If you have a hearing loss or know someone who does, consider joining the HLAA. Individual memberships are just $35 per year for the U.S.; $45 for Canada and Mexico. As a member, you’ll receive the informative bimonthly magazine that I design and produce! Click here to learn more.
Want to be featured in Hearing Loss Magazine? If you have a story to tell about yourself or someone else with hearing loss, we’d love to hear from you! Check out the author guidelines on the link here.
HLAA prints articles and information pieces that discuss anything related to hearing loss. Our goal is to educate readers in all aspects of hearing loss, so that they, in turn, can make choices about how they will live their lives as hard of hearing persons. Feature editorial in each issue covers technology, cochlear implants, legislation, HLAA issues (including but not limited to, board of trustees issues, state organizations and chapters, fundraising), medical, psychosocial topics and personal stories.
I just finished working on an article for the website, flowershopnetwork.com. The posting will be titled, “A Passion for Purple,” and is all about how to incorporate the color in your garden’s palette. While going through my archives for purple flowers to illustrate the posting, I came across this image of a Delphinium that Gina grew in her garden a few years ago. I just love the variegated colors in this flower and thought I’d re-share the photo since it cheered me up on this blustery winter day in Virginia!
Today I’ve been finishing up the layout of a newsletter for a mathematically-based professional association. As usual, when I’m laying out pages, I always scan the text—for a variety of reasons, including a general interest in just about everything (excluding math, unfortunately—it is my Achilles heel, as defined by Wikipedia, “…a deadly weakness in spite of overall strength, that can actually or potentially lead to downfall). I came across this excerpt:
Inverse spectral problems ask how much information about an object is encoded in spectral data. For example, Mark Kac’s question “Can you hear the shape of a drum?” asks whether a plane domain, viewed as a vibrating membrane, is determined by the Dirichlet eigenvalue spectrum of the associated Laplacian, equivalently, by the characteristic frequencies of vibration.
Remind me to tell you about one sad day after a basic math test in college. It involves my progression, in the span of just 24 hours, from “ah, so that’s how you do it” to utter defeat—plus a whole lot of tears.
Mike knows we’re always on the lookout for interesting people who have hearing loss, so he recommended Charles for a future feature article. Charles wears hearing aids and received a cochlear implant in late 2009. I’m happy to report that Charles and I are online friends now and chat often through Facebook, discussing art techniques and materials, photography, camera gear, Photoshop, marketing our work, and life in general. I plan to drive up to North Fork, Long Island, to interview and photograph Charles for the magazine sometime this year. (Above: Charles works on a painting from his Hado series)
A prolific painter, Charles averages one or two large paintings a month and works in oil and acrylic. He does a lot of sketching on his computer with an electronic tablet, and paints with his laptop next to the easel for reference. He uses paintbrushes, applicators, squeeze bottles, detailing pens, rollers, soaking rags and drip techniques. His paintings range from 36″ minimum up to 20 feet—“the bigger the better for me—for my best expression,” he says.
Charles is currently working on a demonstration painting “performance” video that will be posted on youtube.com and vimeo.com. View a video he recently created about his painting, Luvin’ Wave, here. Check out his website at www.wildbank.com. He has been interviewed by many publications, including Fine Art Magazine, Dan’s Papers, Southampton Press, the Los Angeles Times, and others. You can read those interviews on his website here. To download his 41-page e-book, click here: WildbankEbookprint.
Some of my favorite Wildbanks paintings are from his still life series. In an interview with Dan’s Papers, he said, “Although I create large-scale subjects for my murals and commissions, I wind up interspersing my still life series with vignettes of the simple pleasures in life, such as the cup of capuccino.”
Excerpted from www.deafnotes.com: Charles, a Long Island native, is the eldest of nine children and congenitally profoundly deaf. He was fitted with a hearing aid at age two and has a brother who is deaf and another who is hard of hearing. When he was nine years old, with the support and nurturing of his parents and grandmother, he began painting. He later attended Yale, Pratt and Columbia, graduating with honors. In 1979, Wildbank’s first exhibit at Bonwit Teller created a sensation on Fifth Avenue, with a giant sparkling rendering of the famed Cartier diamond. He had just left his position after seven years of teaching the deaf. Deciding to continue painting, he discovered that other artists were exhibiting their art in the store windows of Fifth Avenue, thought he would give it a try, and was quite successful. Soon after, he walked into a neighboring Cartier store and inquired about their windows. Three years later they gave him an entire salon upstairs, where he painted the seven foot tall painting of the Cartier diamond.
Born and raised on Long Island, Charles Bourke Wildbank drew and painted since age 4 as his prime means of communication, as he was born deaf. In an interview with Hamptons.com, Charles said, “When I was younger, drawing took the place of speaking when I couldn’t find the words. Painting or drawing was something I developed because I remember admiring the graffiti in the neighborhood. I loved to draw and found myself drawing my other hand. It developed into drawing a hand holding a ball, earth, or a pencil, sort of like the artist Escher. Art was never a means to escape; it was either a communication or even a dance, showing my skill.”
He took art classes on Saturdays with the encouragement of his family and found himself earning scholarships to Pratt Institute and Yale University where he majored in Fine Art and Photography. He delved into photorealism while at Pratt Institute, created a sensation on Fifth Avenue with a giant sparkling rendering of the famed Cartier diamond, and has painted portraits of David Hockney and the late Luciano Pavarotti. In his Hamptons.com interview, he said, “Growing up, I despaired over being able to sing and yet not hear the notes enough to discern the pitches. I can only get the melody and nuances of music with my hearing aid. I deeply love music but have transcended that with my love for color and light.” He is well known for his versatility of a wide range of figurative themes including florals, still life, portraits and seascapes. Read the full Hamptons.com interview here. (Left: Charles with his painting, Sedona)
His latest achievements include two 18-foot-high murals commissioned by the Cunard Line for the new luxury ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2. The murals depict cliffs and coastal scenes of England and America. Though the murals were applied with paint, Wildbank made extensive use of digital and photographic technology in his sketch preparations.
Wildbank is listed with some of his works in the book, Deaf Artists in America: Colonial to Contemporary, by Deborah Sonnenstrahl. He conducted workshops in Poppi, Italy during fall of 2002, and in Giverny, France during spring of 2006. View his art chronology here.
Up to present day, observable form and vivid color have long been attributed to Wildbank’s art. His recent works appear to flirt with the abstract and the surreal christened as his HADO series. His studio in Jamesport is now open to the public by appointment.
ideafnews.com recently interviewed Charles at his home in North Fork. You can view that captioned video below.
Happy birthday little sister! Dad nicknamed her “WapWap” because when she wanted an apple, she asked for a “wap.” I think he still calls her that. Kelley, you share your birthday with Cybil Sheppard, John Travolta, Matt Dillon, Vanna White, Toni Morrison, Molly Ringwald, Yoko Ono, Jack Palance and Jessica Simpson’s father, Joe. And on this day, Iceland is celebrating “National Bun Day.” Good to know. Hope you had a great one!
My friend Cam just finished a painting class with Joseph Melancon at the Art Center of Sarasota. Like me, Cam makes her living as a graphic designer, too. While she has dabbled in acrylic painting just a bit in the past few years, I think her work is really evolving and she is definitely growing as a painter! I photographed this recent painting in her home in Siesta Key a few weeks ago. You can view the work of her instructor, Joseph Melancon, here. She is now enrolled in an abstract painting course at the Art Center of Sarasota.
Kudos, Cam—I do hope you keep at it. I remember being completely absorbed in the process back in my teen years. That’s why I chose to major in art in college. I couldn’t imagine making a living doing anything not creative.
I remember my very sage father asking me, “how will you make a living with your painting?” He was not trying to discourage me; both my parents have been incredibly supportive of all my creative endeavors. I replied, “why, I’ll sell my paintings, of course.” He then asked, “what if no one buys your paintings?” Huh? That one certainly stumped me. I hadn’t imagined that I might not be able to sell my work! It had nothing to do with talent or lack thereof—it was a practical monetary issue. That’s where fantasy and reality collided.
Then I discovered graphic design. Ah…so here was a potential career where you could actually make art, get paid, and not be the quintessential “starving artist.” It made complete sense, so I enrolled in the “Commercial Art” program at Pan American University (now University of Texas Pan American). While I still painted and sketched, I was more focused on a career where I could actually make a living (practically guaranteed). Hey, Sonya and Mary—remember hand-lettering “Make Your Rum Ron Rico” in design class? Yes, hand-lettering. Rapidograph pens, ink and bristol board. Remember waxers, amberlith, rubylith, and sticky registration dots? Jeez, I feel old just typing this. Remember our instructor (Phillip somebody-or-the-other)? He was always working on his own freelance projects, with an exacto knife in one hand and a cigarette in the other, when he was supposed to be teaching us. That should have been a clue to us—here he was teaching and freelancing just to pay the bills. And he was old…why, he was at least 45! Bald on top with gray fringe around the ears. Still having to work two jobs. How did we not question that set-up and run screaming to the career counselor to change our majors? I want a refund!
Fast forward…all these years after, I’m still a graphic designer…and not entirely unhappy with my chosen profession…but somehow both Cam and I are back at the “what if we could paint (or craft or photograph or something else creative) and sell our results to make a living?” mode. We both daydream about that possibility. Life, full circle, perhaps—back to our roots—if only in our imaginations at the moment. Makes me want to drop everything (not possible) and start painting again. I certainly have the arsenal of supplies with which to do so…sigh…some day. But today? Today a newsletter, trade show banner and business card design beckon. Back to the (electronic) drawing board.
Yep, that’s me. I proclaim myself a victim of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). According to Wikipedia: SAD, also known as winter depression or winter blues, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter.
As I look out my studio window this afternoon, I see more snow coming down. Projection: 4 inches of the inconvenient stuff. White stuff on top of older white stuff. It was pretty the first time it snowed this winter (Dec. 19), but after the first 4 inches, enough was enough. It was 26.4 inches total for that first snowfall alone. I think it has snowed at least six times since then, including the 30″ we got over February 5. Fortunately, we were in sunny Florida during that blizzard, but we came home to the aftermath, followed by the additional 10.5 inches we got two days later on February 10. Ah yes, it was pretty the first time. Now it is just a pain. If I wanted this kind of snowfall, I would have already moved to any one of those snowy states starting with the letter “M”—Maine, Montana, Minnesota or Michigan.
_________________________________________
Well, whaddyaknow—there is actually a named disorder for the SAD condition experienced in summer—Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is accompanied by anxiety (come experience an oppressively hot D.C. summer and you’ll know what they’re talking about!)
_________________________________________
Hmmmm…what cheers me up? The promise of spring (32 days and counting, although by the looks of things, I beg to differ). And gardening. And lots of flowers to photograph. And on that note, I leave you (and temporarily, my SAD symptoms) with a series of collages of photos I shot in my Garden Club members’ gardens a few years ago. Sigh….somewhere under the “white crap accumulation,” there are bulbs hibernating and dormant plants dreaming of the sun. Keepin’ the faiiiiiiittttth, yay yay yay yay, keepin’ the faith…
I photographed this handsome (beautiful?) owl at a wildlife rehabilitation center near the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida. I had to photograph him through a cage, so I’m surprised the resulting image was this good (couldn’t avoid the lumpy tree limb to the right, though). The rehabilitation center is free to walk through, but they take donations to help their cause.
I was researching how to spell the “hoot” sound that an owl makes and found this site here that lists superstitions associated with animals. (How in the world does one keep up with all of these superstitions?) They are from a book published in the 1920s—Kentucky Superstitions—by Daniel Lindsey Thomas and Lucy Blayney Thomas. Here are the ones I found concerning owls:
3617. If an owl hoots, someone will die. (Fortunately, this fella was a quiet one.)
3618. If an owl hoots on the top of a house, there will be a death in that household.
3619. It brings bad luck to imitate the hoot of an owl. (I must confess that I did utter, “who?” when I saw this owl, which prompted him to look me straight in the eyes. What does that mean??? Am I’m in trouble???)
3620. If an owl hoots at the door for three successive nights, the sound foretells a death in the house.
3621. An owl’s hoot about midnight is a sign that a member of the family will meet with an accident.
3622. Tie a knot in your dress or skirt to stop an owl’s hoot. (I was wearing jeans.)
3623. Avert the disaster of an owl’s hooting by turning an old shoe upside down. (Is it too late for me to turn an old shoe upside down to avert disaster?)
3624. To make an owl stop hooting, take off your left shoe and turn it over.
3625. An owl will stop hooting if you pull your shoes off and cross them.
3626. To stop an owl from hooting, turn the toes of your shoes to touch the wall. (What is it with owls and shoes?)
3627. To avert the disaster that follows the hoot of an owl, heat a poker until it is red hot. (Then what do you do with the red hot poker?)
My father (a.k.a. The King of Texas) just took a stroll down memory lane and wrote a recap of our six-day camping/road trip in the spring of 1985. I just added some of my scancafe.com slides from that trip to it and wanted to share this wonderful posting with you. Click on the red link below. Enjoy!
Hard to believe we were in sunny Sarasota just three days ago! Left: the view from my studio, with snow halfway up the back gate! Right: Michael shoveling snow off of the tool shed roof. Unbelievable. I may venture out in the morning to get a Currier & Ives shot for you. Cabin fever is coming soon, I just know it.
At the Mote Aquarium, my friend Cam purchased a bucket of sand for $6 and the kids got to mine through it for shark’s teeth over a trough with running water. They had a blast finding various types of shark teeth and fossilized stingray tails. We all got a chance to touch several types of stingrays (a first for me!). Over at the laboratory, we watched two resident dolphins do tricks with their trainers and met Harry and Buffet, the manatees. There are several sea turtles at the laboratory, too.
On Thursday morning Michael’s father took us to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota. The 9.5-acre bayfront property is best known for its living collection of more than 6,000 orchids as well as its large representation of warm tropical epiphytes. Epiphytes are plants that grow upon another plant (such as a tree) non-parasitically or on objects such as buildings or wires. They derive moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and are found in temperate zones. Epiphytes include some ferns, cacti, orchids, bromeliads, mosses, liverwort, Spanish moss, lichens and algae.
I shot the image below at the Koi Pond at Selby Gardens. I saw this statue and visualized the koi swirling around it, but the fish were right up against the edge of the pond, begging for handouts. So Michael ran off to buy fish food to help make my image happen (isn’t he the best?). He came back empty-handed since they ration out only a day’s worth of fish food for visitors to purchase. Not about to give up on my vision, I asked him to just splash water toward the statue. Bingo—the entire mass of fish started swimming in that direction. Psych! Click! (click, click, click…9 shots later…)
Wikipedia:Koi were developed from common carp in Japan in the 1820s and are a symbol of love and friendship. The carp is a large group of fish originally found in Central Europe and Asia….The ability of carp to survive and adapt to many climates and water conditions allowed the domesticated species to be propagated to many new locations including Japan. Carp as known as koi in Japan.
I especially enjoyed the art exhibit, Batiks Botanicos—Gardens, Plants and Flowers for the Soul, on display until February 23 at the Museum of Botany and the Arts in the Mansion at Selby Gardens. A native of Colombia, artist Angela Maria Isaza captures tropical and exotic plants using the batik process. Originating in the East, batik is a wax-resist dyeing technique. Isaza applies hot wax and various dyes to natural fiber cloth to create her beautiful paintings. This step-by-step process is based on the principle that wax resists the water-based dyes. After wax is applied to certain areas, the fabric is dyed in one color. The dye penetrates the unwaxed areas. This process is repeated several times. The wax is removed by ironing the cloth between newspaper pages.
Many of the paintings that are on display can be seen on her website here.
Michael and I just got back from Sarasota, Florida, where we had been visiting his parents for a few days. Later this week I’ll be posting some images from our various adventures, including visiting the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens on Thursday, a windy walk through Historic Spanish Point on Friday, and showcasing and selling my Polaroid transfer notecards with his mother at an art show in their lovely community on Saturday.
On Sunday I spent a truly blissful day with my friend Camilla and her children—son Nolan and the twins, Ellie and Claire. After breakfast, we headed to the Mote Marine Aquarium and Laboratory. The twins were especially enamored with Hugh and Buffet, two manatees who were born at the Miami Seaquarium and brought to Mote in May 1996 to help teach the public about sea cows. Mote Marine Laboratory is the first facility to have been granted permission from US Fish and Wildlife to conduct basic husbandry training with captive-born manatees.
I’m not sure if the manatee below is Hugh or Buffet, but he was as drawn to the twins as they were to him (he probably thought he was seeing double!). A Mote employee told us that this one had weighed 2,000 pounds, but currently weighs 1800 pounds. The average weight of a manatee is approximately 1,000 pounds, but it can exceed 3,000 pounds. Learn more about manatees on the Mote Aquarium site here.
According to the aquarium’s website, Hugh and Buffet eat about 72 heads of lettuce a day! (Which begs the question—if all they eat is lettuce, how do they pile on all that weight? Are they going heavy on the ranch dressing, shredded cheese and croutons?)
The manatee below would grab a head of lettuce with his tiny flippers and slowly eat it as he sunk to the bottom of the tank (slow food fashion). The other manatee stayed up at the top of the tank, swimming in circles and grabbing chunks as they floated back up (drive-thru fast food style).
Interesting fact: Manatees are not aggressive and they have no social hierarchy. Humans could learn a lesson or two from them, couldn’t we?
Speaking of seeing double, the twins are identical, so it is very difficult for me to tell them apart. I learned that at this point in time, Ellie has all of her front teeth but Claire is missing a few. Unless they smiled and showed me their teeth, I kept calling them by the wrong names all day—despite my internal repetition of this refrain—Ellie Teeth, Claire No Teeth, Ellie Teeth, Claire No Teeth. I took a closeup head shot of them facing the camera and when I showed them the photo on my screen, I asked “which is which?” They both pointed to the face on the right and simultaneously said, “that’s me!” If they can’t tell each other apart, how are we supposed to?!
The Orlando Sentinel reported on manatee deaths in record numbers here. Most of the deaths have been linked to the cold snap that hit the state in early January.
It was a bit chilly that day, so you’ll notice that the twins are wearing coats. What you don’t see are their summer shoes—blue thong sandals and pink Crocs! And speaking of chilly—we left mostly mild and sunny Sarasota yesterday to return to Washington, D.C. and the remnants of the weekend’s blizzard…just in time for another possible snowstorm beginning today and not ending until tomorrow (with a predicted 10-20 inches more of the white stuff). Oh, joy.
In 2003 I photographed the wedding of the daughter of some friends in West Virginia. The wedding was held outdoors on their 33-acre farm, and for July, it was remarkably nice weather! The bride’s best friend was supposed to shoot the wedding as a gift to her, but her parents gave her a trip overseas as a graduation present and she just couldn’t pass it up. I had already volunteered to help with decorations and flower arrangements, so my friends asked me if I would consider covering the event for them. I was very happy to do so. It was my first wedding shot in digital format—utilizing my (then new) Fuji S2 camera. I also wanted the opportunity to do some of the more popular and more casual “photojournalistic” style now popular in contemporary weddings. The majority of the 100+ weddings I’ve shot in the past were a bit more traditional (I even had a list of specific poses to cover when I worked for a wedding photographer one summer!). Obviously, I still covered the traditional group shots (just a few are shown below), but I had the freedom to shoot whatever caught my eye, too. Below is collage with just some of hundreds of images I captured that beautiful day.
Thanks to Elizabeth for passing along this fun video—“If I Made a Commercial for Trader Joe’s.” For those of you who are not fortunate enough to have this unusual store in your neck of the woods—we are truly sorry that you are missing out. (But why did the singer leave out Pirate’s Booty white cheddar popcorn?—talk about “addictive as crack!”)
This is one of Sue’s favorite stores—she will drive an hour to Nashville from her home in Huntsville just to buy their lemon curd for her scones!
Cindy Dyer's Blog 
GIVE ‘EM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT