Toward sabbatical

I read an interesting novel mostly set on Mackinac Island: The Island of Doves by Kelly O'Connor McNees, about a woman who escapes an abusive situation and finds a new, supportive, loving family. It is based on historical people in the early 1800's.

We talked about what moving forward means in the Teaching Life Retreat. I have new ideas; I am embarking on scholarship; I am embarking upon an adventure! I would like to help the workplace create a culture of support, community, and open communication. I want to help colleagues truly practice inclusion, equity, and integrity. I would like to get (back, and forward) to the person who is a good listener, can see the big picture and any gaps, can draw out the feelings and needs of the speaker, can coach toward better teaching and learning by practicing the principles of "nonviolent communication" and (nonreligious) spiritual direction as well as peer coaching. I also want to practice art and music, to move toward realizing a vision in my photos and improving my painting. One person suggested that I look into the symphony's "Musical for Health Initiative" program to see if I could join to play my viola for people, when I come back -- maybe there is an opportunity for amateurs, volunteers.

Art and vessel

What is it that I want to portray with art? Yousef Karsh showed people's souls through stillness in portraits, Henri Cartier-Bresson through the "decisive moment" in candid B&W photos. Eve Arnold used available low light and muted color in her outdoor photos. 

How do my experiences and influencers show up? Outdoor photos with available (often low) light. Trying to show how light falls or bounces. Stillness, except for the motion of water. Romantic. Pointillism.

I'm more serious than funny but have a sense of humor. I carry fear, anger, and resistance to authority. I love learning, nature, connection, reflecting.

Taking the photos gives me a kind of focus outside myself, as does manipulating them. What about my photos would/might move someone forward to new understanding? Patterns - repeated shapes or shadows, details of a flower. 

Being in-between: not one thing nor another but a third concept, upside-down and backwards (a.k.a. contrary) to most people. A solitary mystic who revels in contemplating and exploring the biggest ideas about the universe and how we fit into it. How the parts mirror and reveal the whole, how the whole has to be considered in individual decisions and actions and why it is so very necessary to consider the "other" or "othered": social justice, responsibility, compassion, bridges.

What are some ideas to explore? Chaos. How the physical items I have show who I am? Quaker history of Indian boarding schools; reconciliation--started a conversation about creating something like an “Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners” statement but am leaving it to season with time and to let elders discuss the idea.

I feel so distant from the book and my chapter. Maybe that's what my pictures show right now - that waiting emptiness. The paths without a center of focus - just the open path. Maybe that's all I can be right now - a vessel. An unoccupied bench, a reflection in the water.

Kristin Hogan

The GVSU Library partnered with Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies to bring Kristen Hogan to campus - professor/librarian and author of The Feminist Bookstore Movement : Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability.

An interview with her about her book:

https://dukeupress.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/qa-with-kristen-hogan/

Chapters and an article:

We Collect, Organize, Preserve, and Provide Access, With Respect: Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Life in Libraries, in Beyond Article 19 : Libraries and Social and Cultural Rights, with Loriene Roy

Balancing Access to Knowledge and Respect for Cultural Knowledge: Librarian Advocacy with Indigenous Peoples’ Self-Determination in Access to Knowledge, in Libraries Driving Access to Knowledge

Women’s Studies in Feminist Bookstores: “All the Women’s Studies women would come in,”  Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

My thoughts:

Hogan's writings about Indigenous peoples helped me think about access to sacred knowledge in a different way - that sometimes there are good reasons for limiting access to information or artifacts (e.g., to certain seasons of the year) or to certain population segments (e.g., women vs men, indigenous or non-indigenous).

Hogan refers to the Feminist Bookstore News, which we have in the Independent Voices database, so I looked up Kalamazoo Pandora and read the articles about River Ardz's bookstore, which I think was open 1981-1999. While I went there, it was infrequently, and I felt like I missed out on a lot of River's wisdom, until Amy reminded me that I should be gentle with myself about the past and living in Kalamazoo.