Virginia art talk

Aside from a bad flight, I had a really good time in Virginia. I arrived late Tuesday morning in Newport News and was escorted by a student to the college where 2 photo classes welcomed me with a huge spread of food! I don't eat some of what they have but the tables consisted of shrimp rings, BBQ pork, chicken salad, pasta salad with chicken and feta cheese (that was amazing!), spinach/artichoke dip, chips, cakes, chocolate bon bons....it was really something else. I then did one-on-one critiques with the students for about 3 hours. Shar, my hostess, is a full time photography professor at the school and the one that invited me and the last time I saw her was about 10 years ago at an SPE conference. We are and will be forever FAB family members (will explain the FAB in another post).

I also met with the theatre manager, Tori - yes, there is a real theatre in the auditorium of this school, where I did my talk. Apparently, she is one of my biggest fans and is very awesome - sweet and generous.

The talk went well. My main problem is not talking enough. The hour-long talk seems to always end in 40 minutes. Somehow, I will have to figure out how to stretch it. Still, I got questions! That is always good. And what's even better were these 2 female students that came up to me afterward and told me how much they love my work and how much they can identify with the body image stuff. One girl started to cry as she had grown up with eating disorders. She kept asking me how I was able to just face and accept myself. We chatted for quite awhile and it was very rewarding.

During the day was very fun. I had been asking my Shar for a couple of weeks if there was a way we could go shooting somewhere interesting and that I would bring my camera and white flowy dress. She told me her responses kept getting bounced back to her, so naturally, I brought nothing. She hooked me up with a Holga and even better - Tori hooked me up with a wedding gown and made me a fairy crown. We went to Fort Monroe to shoot.

It seems performance art is where I am sort of headed so I asked a soldier to come kiss my hand. Not realizing how much trouble he could get into, I pleaded. I did tell him he could keep his back to the camera so he reluctantly did it. I also asked 3 men in ties to come pose with me.They did very willingly! I will have photos of that soon.

In the meantime, I couple of digital shots of me in the dress :)