Wang Weiguo, an award-winning actor with the National Theatre Company of China, was wandering through Bejing’s Panjiayuan Flea Market when he found a treasure, 20 exquisite picture frames. He bought them all. Inside the frames were a woman’s life story. There were pictures of her as a baby and a growing child, pictures with...
Songs are really moving through my heart these days. Songs with lyrics I can sing, melodies that won’t let me go. Songs whose words set my spirit buzzing like a tuning fork. Some new songs have moved into that space, thanks to Julia Dinsmore, who never steers me wrong. She introduced me to The...
One of my fellow Care2 Causes bloggers, Steve Williams, shared this today. Thanks, Steve. Hip-hop artist Adair Lion won me over with this video. The Amarillo, Texas, artist comes out strongly with a song called “Gay Is OK.” The story woven through it is a heart tugger. Along with some straight-out, gutsy lyrics calling...
My friend Judith and I were walking in the glorious light of late-afternoon sun today. Our route took us past a bed of tulips that seemed to grow from tight buds to open flowers in two days. Among the masses of red tulips, the occasional errant yellow stood out. The same was true among...
When Marion Sinclair won the 1934 Victorian Girl Guides competition for writing an Australian round, she likely never dreamed one day campers in Idaho would be singing it. And when I was belting out these words along with my fellow campers, I never dreamed I’d hear a kookaburra. Kookaburra sits in the old gum...
A big band was playing a lively tune at one of the last concerts of the Grampians Jazz Festival. We carried chairs to a shady spot away from the hot sun and settled in to listen. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of someone dancing with such abandon I had...
Their hair is grey, but their music retains all the colours of the jazz palette. Each February they descend on Hall’s Gap for the annual Grampians Jazz Festival. The talented musicians come from around Australia, mostly Victoria and South Australia, for three days of non-stop music in the heart of the rugged Grampians range....
People who choose a career in the arts are used to hearing advice about finding a job that pays real money and doing art on the side. But if no one leaps over the edge and spreads tentative wings, there will be no musicians, dancers, actors, artists, writers…or storytellers. The courage of those who...
In the Mathare Valley slum of Nairobi a group of young people is working to make their dream of a better future become reality. The Mwelu Foundation puts cameras in their hands, teaches them film production and journalism and a sense of responsibility toward their community. Julius Mwelu is founder and artistic director of...
There are days when I read the work of some author whose words zing, whose stories make me gasp, whose insight is like sun breaking through clouds. If that happens to be one of the days I’m kicking myself for my own poor contribution to the stream of words, I contemplate giving up my...
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