beautifulbook

babies

2010-12-19T14:35:00.000-08:00

A baby is one of my favorite people to take pictures of! They're easy since they're usually a compliant model, looking cute 100% of the time. You can't get a bad picture, a yawn or squawk is just endearing and gives the wider sense of personality. But I love photographing babies most of all because I can't get over the awe of these small creations. I get to gaze at a masterpiece, every small wrinkle and strand of spiky hair is just perfect. Here is lovely little Grant, born in the Netherlands to some of my dearest friends. The photo of the blue and white candy covered anise over a biscuit, is tradition "beschuit met muisjes" which is given to guests coming to visit the babe with a cup of tea. If the baby is a girl, they'll of course be pink and white!

2010-10-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

My lovely cousin Nadia

Nadia and Hana posing after some coffee

Shopping in the evenings

Yet another view from the roof, what lovely light!

Highlights from my time in Damascus:

2010-10-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

We walked through the winding streets to this large mosque. It's unique to people since the head of John the Baptist is believed to be buried here. The sun was blinding so mostly just children were playing in the courtyard. The adults stuck to the shady edges. Nadia and I entered through a special entrance where we donned what looked like military issued djilabas with hoods (since we were not wearing head coverings). I loved it. I felt less obviously foreign. I'm pictured below in my hood.

Nadia shows Hana and I how to wear a wig! The girls in Syria love them. They're cheap and offer endless temporary hairstyles.

I will never forget the food. This was even considered the "poor man's" lunch with beans and yogurt, but I thought it was just about the best thing I'd ever had. If this was poor man's food, I can't imagine the rich man's delights!

Me in my lovely hood.

A stunning view from Nadia's roof top in the old Christian quarter. The streets filled at night once the cool breezes arrived and people go shopping! Most people go to sleep after midnight to take advantage of the cool night and the people watching :)

2010-08-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Today I finally made the connection! There are 3 things that I've loved for a while but just discovered why they all three click for me. I now understand why I love each of them!

1. NPR radio. Ever since I can remember my parents have listened to this informative, creative, witty news source. "Car Talk" on road trips, "Science Friday" during our homeschooling years, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me", and on and on.

2. Super Freakonomics, a book by Levitt and Dubner. I'm smitten by this book. I can't stop talking about it, making connections to the plethora of fascinating anecdotes through out the book as I go through life, or re-reading favorite tid bits... from child safety seats to walking drunk or the environment. It reads like fiction, informs you like NPR, and makes you laugh while drawing what seem like different threads together in to a lovely whole like David Sedaris does with his stories

3. And finally TODAY I came upon "Pecha Kucha" (definition: the sound of chatter). It's an event that is held in over 300 cities world wide, yet began in Tokyo. The idea is that around 12 presenters are given the opportunity to speak using 20 slides (20 seconds per slide) to a group of people. Tonight there were well over 500 people present. It was so wonderful! And felt like a lovely combination of present moment brilliance of NPR and the randomness of Super Freakonomics. We heard from people talking about a youth soccer league, need for school reform, compassionate software, how you don't have to be Buddhist to enjoy nothingness, and on and on. I loved it! I am smitten all over again!

2010-01-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

some beauty I've experienced lately:

snow oh glorious snow
gloria asking me every hour when our date is
biking up and over canal bridges
processing with allie while walking home
eric's monkey and faun
gloria having a tantrum because our date can't be today
drawing with lucas
seeing faces i love of people i've only known 15 months
talking about ebay with connor
staying open
grayson singing me a song
doing church in a non church way

2010-01-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

just a few of my beautiful friends...

2009-08-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

NathanWatkinsPhotography.com

All three photos are taken in Morocco

more polaroid beauty

2009-07-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

2009-06-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

2009-05-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

I saw these beautiful things flash by as I was cycling through the center yesterday.
lovely morocco inspire pendant lights
pictures taken from terrainathome.com

2009-04-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

japanese happy tape!! masking tape comes alive!

www.happytape.bigcartel.com

sara sent this link to me! can't wait to get some! I'll be afraid to use it though.. it's just too beautiful! I'll just stick in a bowl like this and have a pretty table center piece!

2009-04-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

talk about the bible coming to life.
artist: cody miller
www.codyfmiller.com

2009-04-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

photographer: tiara mia

A poem for Good Friday

2009-04-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Precarious Safety

Once in the fog of awake and asleep I saw
baby carriages hanging, suspended.
Cracked and in need of parts, they were
structurally unsound.

So, hands covered in small and stinging cuts,
I built precarious safety and called it
sticks woven together into a nest

Once I dreamt of fully conceived art,
prints of suburban homes with stick growths attached to their roofs.
I named them suburban stick-pods and took them as my own.

Once I saw, quickly, a man's teeth and bones straighten
and become the forming bones of an infant in the womb.
It kissed its mother before it was born
and lay, covered in blankets.
The layers came off and legs kicked happily.

Eva Christensen, 2009

2009-04-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents
these deepening tides moving out, returning
I will sing to you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels into the open sea.

Rainer Maria Rilke

2009-04-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

my sister's first solo show:

"You Find This"
Senior Exhibition March 17-29, 2009
Eva Christensen

She created the hanging branch sculpture and the wall drawings.

2009-03-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

one more!

2009-03-16T06:51:00.001-07:00

hossintropia.com
spanish designer i discovered. the summer line is photographed in barcelona!
super beautiful!

2009-03-10T03:33:00.000-07:00

super cool salt and pepper grinders from ikea.com/nl

2009-03-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

i forget the sculptors name. it is at the nieuw kerk in the modern art and spirituality exhibit. great show.

2009-01-24T17:23:00.000-08:00

thepaperapartment.blogspot.com

2009-01-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

The Chronicles of Narnia illustrations

Pauline Baynes (1922-2008)

2009-01-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

i've become a tea addict.

this kind looks really good and is fair trade:

www.oxfordethical.co.uk

2009-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

I am not much given to tears, not ordinarily anyway. For joy? Yes. I can, and sometimes do, cry for joy. Grief and sorrow? We all can cry over them. We all do. And beauty. Always for beauty. But the truth of the thing is that I don't have a definition for beauty. Neither, of course, do philosophers or aestheticians, when one gets right down to it. In fact, with beauty, almost all of us have to fall back into the tired old saw of "I don't know how to describe it, but I know it when I see it."

With beauty, that trite saying means for me that I recognize immediately the strange stillness that always surrounds beauty, like an opening in space and time, making a corona or aura around it. I know by perceived sensation the way beauty goes straight to my thorax when it enters me, rising only later, if at all, to my head. I know the union I feel, if just for a few moments, with all things when I am in the presence of beauty. And I know that beauty makes me tear up just for the wonder of its being possible - just for the sheer miracle that the stuff of creation can be so arranged as to become this that I receive as beauty.

Phyllis Tickle (in her forward to Jesus Brand Spirituality by Ken Wilson)

2009-01-01T15:27:00.000-08:00

Infants

by Eva Christensen

The purest and most volatile form of life.

Their lives are in them.

All of it!

Compressed.

So rich it hurts.

Color so saturated they look like blood.

All of them.

Purple blood, green blood.

In babies!

You come away with yellow finger tips,

orange lips, blue eyes.

It stains and you're glad.

The baby grins, it's illuminated soul seeping out.

What are these things?

Are they even safe?

Probably not.

They are not what you think.

They are more.

More than we'll ever know from here.

But we knew once.

If only we could go back to our days of color.

(I just have to brag and share one of my sister's fabulous poems. This is my favorite! The photo is of Nora Holmes)

2008-12-29T03:54:00.000-08:00

my favorite artist of the month: Yto Barrada

all photographs are taken in Tangier, Morocco

picture titles (top to bottom)

"girl in red"

"tunnel"

"babysitter"

www.ytobarrada.com

2008-12-29T03:27:00.000-08:00

i love packages from my sister. the whole experience is a joy. the brown paper wrapping, the ribbon made of buttons, the fabric ties, the tissue paper... and then the gifts, oh wow! small and delightful like these little hair clips she made.

artist: eva christensen

2008-12-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

"despues"

"pogo"

I received the top card from my friends sara and michael for christmas. made my day. thought it was just gorgeous so I looked up the artist. She even makes these sweet little animals.

essimar.etsy.com

2008-12-26T13:11:00.000-08:00

vincent van gogh drawings.

van gogh museum in amsterdam

2008-12-26T07:03:00.000-08:00

i love yarn.

larimeloom.etsy.com

2008-12-26T06:53:00.000-08:00

a lovely book to waste away a few hours with.

2008-12-22T16:20:00.000-08:00

I'm such a sucker for origami anything.

I found these ornaments on a beautiful blog: bloesem.blogs.com

You can find a tutorial to make your own here: http://domesticali.typepad.com/domesticali/2008/11/origami-wreath-tutorial.html

2008-12-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

my favorite christmas cookies ever. so easy and addictive (i'm serious, watch out!)

2 c flour

1 c butter

1 c cream cheese

combine in to a ball, cover with wax paper,and chill overnight or as long as you can possibly wait :) then give a blob of dough to each person on a heavily floured surface and roll away. Not too thin. Cut with cookie cutters.. put them on a baking sheet and then sprinkle with TONS of sugar, the more the better (make sure to press the candy in to the cookie dough to make it stick)! The best candy is colored sugar, red hots, and the multi-colored sprinkles. Bake for 10-15 min or so at 375 degrees. They're awesome for kids because all the sugar gets to go on top!

2008-12-11T14:08:00.000-08:00

camper.com

a shoe/boot company. they have one of the most playful interactive websites I've ever seen. every few months I pop on to see the new "word" they've created for you to enjoy

2008-12-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

heidi de gier (an amazing dutch photographer that nieke told me about. she's done a # of different facinating projects... check out her website)

www.heididegier.nl

2008-12-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

marleenillustraties.nl

(rachel b. discovered this lovely dutch collage/postcard artist... her website is a dream!)

2008-11-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

The Nativity by Julie Vivas

Published by Voyager Books

(the best book of its kind that I've EVER read, amazing illustrations)

2008-11-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

sukrachandwedding.blogspot.com

maxwanger.com

back in columbus i would shoot weddings on the side. i just stumbled across these 2 wedding photographers, two of the most creative i've ever seen.

2008-11-29T14:05:00.000-08:00

sewgreen.blogspot.com

2008-11-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

graphic dish towels

elledecor.com

2008-11-27T13:15:00.001-08:00

spider mums

2008-11-26T16:19:00.000-08:00

wear this while it's still fall or just get a few for every season. they're each a masterpiece!

whichgoose.etsy.com

2008-11-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

my brother and sophie

photographer: laura pugh (i think)

2008-11-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

elum letterpress designs

elumdesigns.com

2008-11-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

my bobby miller painting

"beautiful stripes on red"

acrylic on canvas board

14by18

2008-11-23T11:48:00.000-08:00

kaffefassett.com (the fabrics which I first discovered through kelly!)

ballaratpatchwork.com.au/scrapbag (the quilt artist)

2008-11-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

delicate earings. laurenkroberts.etsy.com

2008-11-23T00:25:00.000-08:00

when my dad laughs. utter delight.