I keep stumbling across Michelle Caplan’s beautiful art and everytime, the layers of meaning, and the stories in each portrait cause me to stop and question the passing of time, while all at once needling me to find a way to record our lives in a way that goes someway to honouring our lives as a family without explicitly describing who we are…
In her bio, Michelle say’s…
"The portraits bring life to a families photographic history, each piece with it’s own narrative; trying to the tell the story of the person behind the image. It can represent a link to a families past and provide a visual legacy for it’s future. A piece can capture a point in time in the ever changing life of a child, or evoke the memory of a beloved relative long past. "
And that is what we need to do isn’t it? We don’t need to record every minute of every day the way digital photography allows us to do, we need instead to learn to peel back all that is ordinary and see what is real. To do away with hoping to find the essence of a person amongst a thousand pictures and instead re-think the way we view our lives: both the way they were and the way the truly are.
It is a fact of life that children have bad taste. But it surely doesn’t have to be that way? What if we had an outrageous Mommy tantrum and said a big bad no to the Power Ranger duvets? Refused to allow the Teletubbie posters to grace our walls? Banished Barbie from the bedroom? I…
Cleaning out my fridge and thinking about writing a religious poem that somehow combines feeling sorry for myself with ordinary praise, when my nephew stumbles in for a coffee to wash down what looks like a hangover and get rid of what he calls hot dog water breath. I wasn’t going to bake the cake…
Puttery Treats For Today. 1. Get out your pinking shears and line your pantry shelves with pretty oilcloth offcuts. 2. Thread a crystal onto a piece of ribbon and hang it in your window to send Winter sun rainbows dancing around your kitchen. 3. Write your favorite recipes onto the back of a collection of…
When is work not like work at all? When, my dear Housekeepers, you have the privilege of sitting at Clares desk in her gorgeous red living room, with a cup of tea at your side, a cotton candle burning in a vintage cup and saucer, and Madeleine Peyroux accompanying the tiptap of your fingers on the…
It is late and I am tired in the nicest possible way it is to be tired: the dull ache of the expenditure of physical energy without the drain of heartache, sorrow, loneliness, or misery… Today I bought a beautiful pair of forties style black patent leather stacked slingbacks. I am in love with them….
In my best-selling twenty -five part clutter-busting program “Trash It or Treasure It”, I describe four main types of clutter I have long observed: both in my own propensity for hoarding and in that I observed during my years working as an interior designer. Much of it is kind of sad. For here’s the thing:…
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Thanks for the link to Michelle..I had found her site a couple of weeks ago and forgot to bookmark it. I was looking for it this morning…and could not find it.I should have stopped into your place a little sooner. :o)
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Thanks for the link to Michelle..I had found her site a couple of weeks ago and forgot to bookmark it. I was looking for it this morning…and could not find it.I should have stopped into your place a little sooner.
:o)
Wow, what beautiful artwork. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for the kind and thoughtful words. I really apprectiate the shout out!
All the best,
Michelle Caplan