"Falling Into Place" at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, January 17-March 3, 2013

Click on images to see them in a larger format

There are times in your life that you know you will never forget. Thursday, January 17, 2013 was just such a time for me. It was the opening of three solo exhibits at the world-renowned Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts: David Pace's "Burkina Faso: Night and Day," Mary Beth Meehan's "City of Champions," and my self portraits from "Falling Into Place." Prior to the opening, I gave a Member's Gallery Talk, and later David Pace spoke about his photos of the people in the small West African country of Burkina Faso.

The Griffin obviously has the support of the community judging from the dozens of members who turned out for my talk, and the many volunteers who were working behind the scenes to make everything run smoothly...which it did. They put on such a lovely party with a groaning table of food and plenty of wine and nonalcoholic drinks. Everyone was made to feel welcome, especially the artists. David and his wife had come from California, I had come from Detroit, and sadly, Mary Beth Meehan who lives in Massachusetts was unable to attend because she was recovering from surgery. But the Griffin Museum has the reputation it does because of two creatively gifted, hardworking women: the Executive Director Paula Tognarelli and the Associate Director Frances Jakubek. I learned so much from both of them.

For me personally, there were five individuals who attended Thursday night's celebration who have very special meaning in my life. I call four of the five my "kids" and the fifth is loved because she is the life partner of one of our kids. Now in their 50s, Diane Favrow, Colleen Smith Clark, Bill Mackey and Tripp Micou were in and out of Ed's and my house as if it were their own during their growing up years. Ed and I never gave birth to children of our own but we loved kids, and the neighborhood kids seemed to know it and loved us back. I had hoped to see Bill and his partner Andrea Samsel while in Boston because they live in the area. Tripp also lives nearby but it was still an unexpected delight to have him show up. However, the unimaginable surprise came from Colleen and Diane who traveled from their homes in Michigan - 12 hours apart, I might add - to surprise me at this opening! We happened to be on the same plane so that was where the surprise actually occurred. Happily, that meant we were able to spend time hanging out together on Thursday. I don't have a picture of her, but one more of our "kids" traveled to the Boston area to see me: Leslie Mackey Potter, Bill's younger sister who lives in Vermont, drove two and a half hours to spend Friday night with me.

Here are pictures of me and my "kids" at the museum on Thursday night:

I'm going to leave you with one more image from my time in Cambridge, MA (which is where I stayed). This photo was taken beside the Holden Chapel (circa 1744) as Diane, Colleen and I explored the Harvard Yard on Thursday. Never before had I seen an owl in the middle of the day, especially one who sat there without moving even when we stood right under it. Only when each of us had downloaded our owl photos to our computers did we see why that owl was not flying away. Click on the image and look at what it is sitting on!

Of course, to me this magical creature symbolized wisdom...the wisdom I hoped to impart at the museum that night. Now I look at what it had in its clutches and wonder what THAT symbolized!