Have a Heart

Last night I joined a full house at The School of the Art Institutes's Ballroom in support of West Suburban PADS, Have a Heart Gala.

All photos from the event can been seen here

Mann School Dance

Above is a mini slide show with a few of the winter wonderland photos, click here for a link to all the photos from The Mann School Dance Friday night.

Jill Salzman

Jill Salzman - The Founding Mom, speaker, author, musician - Oak Parker






For those of you who know Jill, and most mom entrepreneurs in the Oak Park/Chicago area do, you'll know having Jill sit on her sofa and smile at the camera wasn't really going to work. I kept thinking girl power (women power, but that sounds too serious) when I was thinking about how to photograph her. Maybe a group of women in business holding her up, mmmmm, her doing some kind of power move, flexing her mussels, maybe, let’s play with that idea. The 'We can do it' poster came to mind, so I looked up a little history.

The "We Can Do It!" image was commissioned by Westinghouse not for recruitment during the war but to exhort already-hired women to work harder. During World War II, the "We Can Do It!" poster was not connected to the 1942 song "Rosie the Riveter", nor to the widely seen Norman Rockwell painting called Rosie the Riveter that appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. But it was much later used to promote feminism, self-empowerment, campaign promotion, and advertising.

It's seemed fitting, Jill pushes all us moms in business to work a little harder, self-empowerment she definitely promotes, so I dropped by last Sunday morning and we had a laugh and took some photos while or girls played. I don't think we needed to copy the photo to get the idea, it's the 2013 version.

You can check out her current adventure The Founding Moms and all that goes with it, 'Found It' the book, 'The Founding Kit' over at foundingmoms.com

Food Patriots

As a sponsor of the One Earth Film Festival 2013 I will be attending many of the upcoming events over the March1-3 weekend. Last night I photographed at a rough cut of Jeff Spitz film 'Food Patriots'




to see a list of all the events and films that will be shown around Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park area in the next month click here.

Jeff at the event to chat with everyone after the movie, he even let the young food patriots check out his cameras and do a bit of filming.

A few of our local Oak Park/Chicago food patriots were in the audience, Jenny Jocks Stelzer from The Sugar Beet Co-op, and Angela Taylor community garden activist from Chicago's west side, check out another doc all about her garden here

Prexy Nesbitt

Prexy Nesbitt - Activist, Educator, Multiculturalism and Diversity Specialist - Oak Parker

There is something about meeting someone in their own home over a morning cup of tea that sets a certain comfort level, and Prexy's home is certainly a comfortable one. Surrounded by books and photos I was instantly captivated. I left an hour later uplifted, uplifted and reminded that any one of us can do our bit to better the world. We can reach out to each-other, to our neighbor next door, to our neighbor in another country and work together to make this place a better one for all of us together.

Four decades of movements for social justice and a commitment to anti-racism brings us a lovely person and a life well lived. From working with MLK Jr. and friendships with Nelson Mandela, civil rights on Chicago west side to helping direct the World Council of Churches to Combat Racism (from Geneva, Switzerland), it's not surprising that he grew up in a home filled with civil rights and union organizing. (his parents marched with Percy Julian in the 1950's after Julian's Oak Park home was firebombed, the Julians were the first African-Americans to move into Oak Park) It is difficult to write so little about someone who has done so much but prexynesbitt.com gives a much fuller biography and information on his ongoing Making The Road tours of Africa.

I think all I really need to write is this is who I set out to find when I first began this project.

I look forward to our night of south side blues.

Glenn Brewer

Glenn Brewer - Community Affairs

As the Oak Parker project started to grow community involvement took shape and many of the sitters would then recommend someone else I should think about photographing. I liked how this added to the feeling of a group project, and it has given me an idea for the exhibit at the end of the project which will include a web connecting all involved.

Glenn was recommended due to his community involvement, his work on many local committees and boards, and the word that struck me most 'fair' his fairness and thoughtfulness for the whole rather than the few. Fairness is a value I highly regard as so I met with Glenn Monday morning at village hall where is spends a lot of time as a village trustee.