… the plan was to rise early and get a good start on a number of projects that are active now … and the plan would have been great, but I didn’t roll out until almost 10AM … of course I didn’t roll into bed until 4A … oh well, things were going at a record pace and projects finished while others are well on the way to completion.

About 4PM, Eric picked me up for an afternoon walk at Bubbling Ponds in Page Springs, and what a walk it was … especially if you enjoy getting great shots of Ospreys, Cinnamon Teal, Black Hawks, Red Wing Blackbirds and many more! It is very active there now and a good time to be there shooting the wildlife and enjoying the crisp early spring weather. Likely I will have a walk down there tomorrow too. The perfect finish to a perfect day!

The Black Hawk above was just leaving his perch and the Red Wing Blackbird below was singing his heart out letting all who would listen, that he would be the perfect mate.

My friend Steve Snyder is presenting at the Sedona Heritage Museum a week from tomorrow, that is the 13th at 10AM. The presentation will be set within the framework of his book Shot Down, which chronicles the events leading up to and after the B-17 that his father was piloting was shot down over the French/Belgium border during WWII. The book is great and I expect the presentation will be too … check it out and sign up on the link above.

Into the weekend for me … time for work, pleasure and celebrating Easter and Passover … allow your life to be filled with joy and pass it on! We are so blessed, so let that guide you in your daily thoughts and activities … above all, keep breathing … the simple things are important!

With joy!

Ted

Thou great God, uphold me also in the lonely hour;
and though I fall in the din and the dust of the world,
resurrect Thou me. Even to the last, turn my hands
to kindly service, and part my lips in gleeful songs
of love. And in the softly falling dark, when all grows
strangely still, may I be glad to have trod the sweet
green earth, and known the tender touch of love. Yet
may I depart with joy, as one who journeys home at
evening.

excerpt from An Easter Prayer by Max Ehrmann

###

The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com

In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.

Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses.  By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.

More about Ted Grussing …

Illegal mining in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Venezuela poses a danger not only to the region’s fragile ecosystem but also to the Indigenous communities that call these areas home. Today, the struggle of the Yanomami people, the largest group in the Amazon, is more urgent than ever. Over the past five decades, activist and photographer Claudia Andujar has worked with the Yanomami to defend their native rights and sovereignty. Photography has been an important tool for raising visibility in order to protect the people, their land, and their culture. Her encounter with the Yanomami people in 1971 transformed her artistic practice into a life of activism. The Yanomami Struggle at The Shed is a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Andujar’s collaboration and friendship with the Yanomami people. The show presents more than 200 of her photographs in dialogue with paintings and drawings from a new generation of Yanomami artists: André Taniki, Ehuana Yaira, Joseca Mokahesi, Orlando Nakɨ uxima, Poraco Hɨko, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, and Vital Warasi, as well as shaman Davi Kopenawa. Visitors will also encounter new video works by contemporary Yanomami filmmakers Aida Harika, Edmar Tokorino, Morzaniel Ɨramari, and Roseane Yariana.

In a conversation held over Zoom, Claudia Andujar and anthropologist Bruce Albert, co-author of The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (with Davi Kopenawa), discussed their experience and struggle in support of the Yanomami people and the Amazon rainforest. 

The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Silvia Benedetti: Can you tell us about yourself? 

Claudia Andujar: I am 91 years old and I was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1931. I spent my childhood in Oradea, Transylvania, a place that sometimes belongs to Hungary and sometimes to Romania. … It was a difficult situation when the Germans took over Oradea during the Second World War. At the time, it belonged to Romania and I didn’t speak the language; I spoke Hungarian. I was very much afraid that I would be deported. I tried to hide from people that I didn’t know. I am a survivor of the war. My father’s family was Jewish and they were put into a concentration camp, where they all died. 

After this very difficult childhood, I was invited by my uncle to come to New York. He was a medical doctor and my only family member that had survived the war. I enrolled in the humanities program at Hunter College. When I was around 15 years old, I became a very independent person. I had to work at Macy’s and go to school at the same time in order to survive. For the same reason, I decided to become a teacher. I later decided to travel to the Americas. I went to South America and made a living teaching French. 

SB: How are you linked to the Yanomami people?

CA: I decided to travel and I was interested in taking pictures in the tropical part of Brazil, and that is how I got in 1974 to the Amazon and to the Yanomami people. Somebody told me about this very isolated people that nobody had photographed before. Because of all my past life and difficulties, I decided to try to get to know the Yanomami people and see what I could do for them. With time I became a photographer. It took me many years to understand who these people were and how they lived. There are about 3o,000 Yanomami in the Amazon. I don’t know everyone, but I have an understanding of what it means to work with them, and my past is very much linked to theirs. I suffered a lot. 

Bruce Albert: I had spent a year at the Catrimani River when I heard about an intrepid White woman traveling in the forest. I knew she was a foreigner, that she was near the border, and that she was speaking about the Yanomami situation — the perimetral road cutting through their land, and all the bad things happening in the region. … We were both close friends with the Yanomami, and we were concerned. We were also both concerned about the future of the Yanomami, and we wrote the first document together to condemn the cutting apart of the Yanomami land, and then we organized a health program with the NGO Survival International. 

I met her in person in 1978, in the deep forest of the Catrimani region. Claudia arrived in the middle of the night driving a black Volkswagen Beetle. At the time, the military had opened a road from Boa Vista, the capital of the state of Roraima, through the Yanomami territory. I was sleeping in a collective house of the Yanomami near a mission. When I saw her arrive in the dark, it was like she was escaping from her own photography. I only saw her silhouette and the light of her car. 

SB: How did Claudia meet the Yanomami?

BA: Claudia met Carlo Zacquini, an unusual Italian Catholic missionary, in the Catrimani. He was not interested in converting the Yanomami, but in learning from them. He would spend his time hunting with the Yanomami. There was a priest in the mission and he would complain all the time because Carlo was always in the forest and never working in the mission. He had been with the Yanomami since 1968, spoke the language, and introduced Claudia. They traveled together in the forest from 1974 until 1977, when she was expelled [by the military]. … My path was more traditional — I was a student at the university in France, and I was doing a PhD, but I was more into action. I came to Brazil in 1975 to help the Yanomami during the construction of the perimetral road. At the time there were not many people working with the Yanomami in Brazil. There were some people on the Venezuelan side. 

SB: How did your collaboration to work with the Yanomami people and protect their region begin?

BA: At the end of 1977, Claudia was expelled from the Indigenous territory. They gave her a week to get all her stuff from the mission post. The military considered her a threat to national security since she was a foreigner speaking about the Yanomami situation and all the bad things that were happening in the region, and against the dictatorship. She was very visible. She had been speaking publicly since 1974, and she was Swiss with an American passport. Together we wrote the first document, condemning the parceling out of the Yanomami land into 19 small islands surrounded by colonizers and agricultural projects. In 1978, we created an NGO, Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami Park (CCPY), along with Carlos Zacquini. 

SB: Claudia, what makes your photographs special?

CA: I decided to devote my photography to get to know the Yanomami better. I think this was very important because I found that when learning about different types of human beings [photography] could be very helpful to get to know them better. 

BA: Many other photographers have worked with the Yanomami, but there is a distance from them. When the Yanomami are looking at Claudia, they are smiling. They are looking at somebody from their family and they are expressing their feelings, and this is very uncommon. … Fifty years ago she started mixing politics and art and working on social justice, and today everybody wants to do that, everybody is talking about social justice and decolonization. This struggle has to do with her past. 

SB: What have you learned from the Yanomami and what can they teach the world?

BA: Since the beginning of our civilization, we have oppressed people. The Yanomami thinking is the opposite — they put all living beings on the same level: humans, animals, and plants. It is a very beautiful and revolutionary way of looking at the world. We could do a lot better in considering other living beings and cultures. The Yanomami have such a sense of humor and they never complain, even if they are dealing with the worst tragedy.

SB: Things have gotten worse in the Amazon … 

BA: Yes, that is another conversation. It is worse, but we are still resisting and so are they. Also, a new generation of Yanomami and allies are working. The lesson from Claudia is the struggle must go on.

The Yanomami Struggle continues at The Shed (545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan) through April 16. The exhibition was curated by Thyago Nogueira, with the guidance of shaman and Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa. It was organized by IMS, The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and The Shed.

Editor’s Note, 4/6/2023, 8:11 pm EDT: An earlier version of this article listed the incorrect Yanomami population. This has been corrected. 

This two-year fellowship includes a $40,000 stipend for artists and producers aiming to reimagine Jewish life and galvanize action on a range of social issues.

There’s room for everyone in Barbie’s world, from Flavor Flav to the cast of Succession.

As president of the Museum of Chinese in America, she patronized Chinatown residents and supported their displacement. She is not fit to lead the American Women’s History Museum.

The new open access, multi-platform publication makes visual essays and research at the intersection of art, design, and sciences available for all.

There are no common moves among artists in The Chicago Cli-Fi Library, except environmental grief as expressed through art-making.

“I’m not saying it’s a happy or pleasant face, but he has a unique look that is fun to capture.”

The visual artists, performers, and media makers selected as residents receive $2,500 stipends, mentorship, documentation of their work, and more.

Arts Patron Myriam Ullens was shot outside her home in Belgium by her stepson, Nicolas Ullens, who cited an ongoing dispute over the family’s inheritance structure.

The recipients are small and mid-sized arts nonprofits that are still recovering from low funding levels during the pandemic.

The exhibition features newly commissioned works by 12 acclaimed Black contemporary artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Theaster Gates, and more.

In a statement, the Florida Department of Education clarified that the famous nude statue “has artistic and historical value” and can indeed be shown in classrooms.

Hey, is it a little Stormy outside, or is it Tuesday already?

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — The colder temperatures are leaving brides and grooms scrambling to switch their weddings to indoor venues.

In the last month, The Azalea Event Venue in South Jordan has had 12 last-minute bookings.

“We actually had a bride last week call and was like, ‘My wedding is in five days and it was going to be a backyard wedding. Is there any way you can fit me in?’ My heart just dropped for her,” said Maci Hardey, general manager of The Azalea Event Venue.

The team is not only grateful for the boost in business but for the opportunity to help those in need.

“We get to be part of so many more special days and help them with the magic moments of their wedding,” Hardey said. “My staff has been incredible, taking up so many last-minute shifts, wanting to work to help these people. It’s been great!”

Hardey said because of all the bookings, they decided to offer last-minute booking pricing to help people in need.

Photographer Melanie Brown said this year has been unprecedented. In the month of March, she typically does 15 to 20 shoots. This year, she did four.

“All of my engagements and bridals have had to be postponed until later this year,” Brown said. “We are just waiting for warmer temperatures.”

Brown said this time last year, instead of shoots in the snow, she was taking pictures of clients in more colorful environments.

“It was tulip festivals, blossoms downtown,” she said.

She has had to adjust, opting for different locations or bringing the shoots indoors.

“This year has been a whirlwind,” Brown said. “Eventually, we’ll get to spring. It‘s not like it can snow in June and July!”

Kowit Awards with the California Poet Laureate and San Diego Poet Laureate

Books, Poetry
Newly appointed San Diego poet laureate Jason Magabo Perez will join the also-newly appointed California poet laureate Lee Herrick this Friday for a poetry reading and mini book fair at the downtown library. It’s not often we get to use the obscure plural “poets laureate,” so this is pretty exciting for me.

This event centers on the annual Kowit Prize, named after legendary San Diego poet and professor Steve Kowit who died in 2015. The newest recipient is Davis, California poet Julia Levine, who will read at the event. In addition to Levine, Herrick and Magabo Perez, former San Diego poet laureate Ron Salisbury, Gill Sotu, Jeff Walt and more will also read. It’s quite the gathering of California poetry stars.

I recently spoke with Lee Herrick about what it means to be a California poet.

“So many of the great poets here that I admire are writing from some experience of immigration or otherness, arrival, discovery, opportunity — things like that. I think those threads run through California in general as well,” Herrick said.

Herrick was born in South Korea and adopted by a white American family when he was 10 months old. Some of his poetry touches on this background.

“At least with adoption, I don’t think we have to have all the answers. Maybe we discover what we’re thinking through the writing. And I think that’s part of the beauty of creative writing or poetry is that we can invent, and we can create. And for adoption being rooted in such loss and grief, writing was always a place of freedom, honestly. It was a place of imagination and wonder and even salvation in some ways,” Herrick said.

To hear my full interview with Herrick — including the Public Enemy song he says most strongly influenced his poetry — listen to the latest Midday Edition podcast episode. You can read one of Herrick’s most beloved poems, “My California,” here.

Check out our January interview with San Diego Poet Laureate Jason Magabo Perez here.

Details: 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, April 7. San Diego Central Public Library, 330 Park Blvd., downtown. Free.

‘Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play’

Theater

“Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play” is a new play by playwright Keiko Green, and it was initially workshopped by The Old Globe in their Powers New Voices Festival last year. I’ve read some of the script and I was hooked after a few pages. The script is delightful — funny, experimental, fantastical — and it has a lot of heart. It follows Ami, an Asian American teenager in 1999 who desperately wants to blend in, but has to face her family business’ role in the MSG panic of the era. Enter “Exotic Deadly,” a strangely named new Japanese girl at school who doesn’t seem to care what others think, shaking things up for Ami. This production is directed by Jesca Prudencio.

Details: On stage April 8 through May 7. This weekend’s shows are 8 p.m. on Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday. The Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park. $39+.

Medium Festival of Photography

Photography
This annual festival attracts photographers and photography fans from near and far for discussions, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, workshops and more. Some highlights this weekend: The “Black Celebration: Photographic Works from Medium Photo’s Black Artist Scholarship Recipients” exhibition at City College’s Luxe Gallery (this weekend’s hours are Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.), and the keynote conversation with Judith Joy Ross and Joshua Chuang at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla at 6:15 p.m. on Friday. The festival is almost entirely free, and you can find the full schedule here.

Details: Multiple events through April 16 in San Diego County and Tijuana. Free.

Jupiter Flight and Nite Lapse at the Casbah

Music, Indie/Rock
Jupiter Flight is a local band featuring brothers Jorge, Ricardo and Daniel Quevedo. The drummer is the vocalist, which always makes for a fun live show. They put out a new four-track EP in September called “EP 1113,” which is a great, retro listen with lush and clangy beats and deep, ominous vocals.

Nite Lapse will also perform — you can read a little more about them in a “5 songs” roundup we did last year. And with rising concert ticket prices ever-present these days, who can resist an $8 show?

Details: 9 p.m. on Saturday, April 8. The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., midtown/Little Italy. $8.

Mathieu Gregoire: ‘Lines’

Visual art, Sculpture
The small, sun-filled ICE Gallery space inside Bread & Salt has new work up. “Lines” is a site-specific, gallery-filling installation by longtime San Diego artist Mathieu Gregoire. It’s a collection of long, tether-like, sculptural black lines suspended from the floor to the ceiling.

Details: On view by appointment (11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday), or during Barrio Art Crawl (see below) this Saturday from 5-8 p.m. ICE Gallery, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. Free.

Barrio Art Crawl and Fern Street Circus

Visual art, Food, Circus, Music
The monthly Barrio Art Crawl runs from noon to 8 p.m. this Saturday, and is mostly anchored along Logan Ave. and the surrounding blocks, with 30-something galleries and shops, food stalls and music.

Highlights: Luna Bloom Shop on Logan Ave. will be having a Little Artists exhibition of kids’ art; the Fern Street Circus will kick off their new neighborhood tour with a bilingual performance at 2 p.m. at Memorial Park in Logan Heights, which is less than a mile away from the main action; and also in Logan Heights, Bread & Salt will be open late, where you can check out work by Sophie Ramos, Armando de la Torre, Mathieu Gregoire (see above) and a fascinating Robert Barry painting at Quint ONE.

Details: Noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, April 8. Logan Ave., Barrio Logan. Free.

Prebys Play Day: Art Block Party

Visual art, Family, Kids, Music
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla is free all day on Sunday, and it’s also a great time to bring your kids. Start with a kid-friendly museum tour at 10 a.m., then catch some of the artmaking activities, including one inspired by Amy Adler’s playground painting on view in the museum, as well as a community stamp mural, a music class and a storytime.

If you haven’t seen the new special exhibitions by Celia Álvarez Muñoz and Griselda Rosas yet, now you can do it for free.

Details: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 9. (family activities run 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.). MCASD, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Free.

You can find more events, or submit your own, at the KPBS/Arts Calendar. And be sure to sign up for the weekly KPBS/Arts newsletter here.

Wildlife photo. Dan Kehlenbach

The Scarborough Land Trust, in partnership with the Scarborough Public Library, is running a six-part Introduction to Nature Photography Class. The course will be taught by nature photographer Dan Kehlenbach.

“Yeah, basically it’s an introduction level course to nature photography,” Kehlenbach said. “Geared to anybody, whether somebody is using a smartphone, or a point and shoot camera, mirrorless camera, SLR, whatever camera they may have. It’s going to be an overall introduction to all aspects of nature photography. It’s going to be six lessons, all each about an hour long.”

No experience is necessary for the free class, and any type of camera may be used, including smartphones. Registration for all six classes is required.

“Dan has been a volunteer for the land trust for two years, something like that, as a photographer,” said Andrew Mackie, executive director of the Scarborough Land Trust. “He has been a great asset for us. You know, if we are looking at a property and need some pictures, running fundraising efforts, or if we are doing a report and we need some photos of something. … You know, I email Dan, and say this is what we need, and he goes out and does it. He’s an amazing photographer.”

“And obviously a great thing that people like to do out in nature especially is take pictures,” Mackie said. “So having a workshop on landscape and wildlife photography seemed like a natural. And partnering with Scarborough Library seemed like a great fit and we’ve partnered with them on a lot of projects in the past. And Dan was offered his time to do a pretty extensive workshop, you know it’s six sessions, with some additional optional outings at land trust properties.”

Lesson one is an introduction to nature photography, cameras, and gear, on Tuesday, April 25, 6:30-7:30 p.m. at the Scarborough Public Library.

“Lesson one we’re just going to talk a little about nature photography, the ethics of nature photography,” said Kehlenbach. “Which I believe is really important because as photographers we can be stewards of the natural world, so we are going to touch on that quite a bit in the first lesson.”

The first lesson will also go over how to use the gear and cameras, including cameras participants may have brought with them.

Lesson two will be on landscapes and scenics, “ranging from what people think of as the grand landscape all the way down to more intimate kind of scenes in nature that are virtually everywhere,” Kehlenbach said. “What I try to get across is that you do not need to travel to exotic locations to make beautiful photographs, they can literally be done in your back yard”.

This session will be held on Saturday, April 29, 1-2:30 p.m. There will be an optional morning meetup session that day at a Scarborough Land Trust location.

Lesson three will be on wildlife photos, Tuesday, May 2, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Lesson four will be on closeups and macro shots on subjects such as flowers, patterns in nature, moss, etc. Kehlenbach will teach different techniques to capture such close-up subjects. This session will be held Saturday, May 6, 1-2:30 p.m. There will be another optional Saturday morning session at a land trust area.

Lesson five is on “after the capture,”or how to take a photo from the camera to editing for optimization. This session is on Tuesday, May 9, 6:30-8 p.m.

Lesson six is on projects for nature photography and what to do with your photos. “I’m guilty of this myself,” Kehlenbach said. “I have thousands of photos on my computer, but what do I do with them? We can share them in various ways. We can put together projects. We can help out organizations in the community. We can make cards for people, make gifts for people. All kinds of things to do. What I’d like to try to emphasize is, get those photos off of your device or off of your computer and into the hands of others, in whatever capacity that may be.”

This session is on Saturday, May 13, 1-2:30 p.m.

There will be a final session for a photo gallery and kickoff on Tuesday, May 16, 6:30-8 p.m. Participants can take one or two of their favorite photos they took from the course and present them in any way they choose.

People can register for the course at https://www.scarboroughlibrary.org/events/1703850025

Wildlife photo. Dan Kehlenbach

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