Tag: video

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Yodeling Storytellers in the Woods

Remember This. Tennessee 2013.

The music and stories the girls come home with are usually pretty colorful. Campfire songs I’ve never heard of, 2-day adventures in the woods gathering forest food for a stew, more plants discovered that contain strong enough fibers to fashion semi-permanent necklaces, and days of journal entries that need to be written out before they lose the details.

A few trips ago, they call came back from camping howling the songs of Doug Elliot. Sharing now.

Doug’s stories derive from his unique lifestyle as well as his deep interest in plants, animals and people. Since humanity’s beginnings our connections with the natural world have defined us and made us who we are. Elliott’s stories explore and celebrate the rich diversity of that special human connection to nature. His programs are textured by his use of traditional lore, regional dialects and accents, and enhanced by his soulful harmonica playing.

Storytelling and education go hand-in-hand. For millennia, storytelling has been an invaluable tool for passing information, values and wisdom from one generation to the next.

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Xylem in us all.

Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue in vascular plants (phloem is the other). Its basic function is to transport water, but it also transports some nutrients through the plant.

If the xylem is the conduit for passing water and nutrients within plants,  this and any blog are also xlyem. We are the roots drawing nutrients from the soil and our thoughts to transport them to you, the flower.

I had the good fortune to take a class with a video professor in the early nineties that influenced me deeply.

Paul Ryan taught an upper level Field Production class that went beyond the traditional scope of using video cameras and microphones properly. He introduced us to the use of Ta’i Chi to control our bodies while shooting ‘hand-held’ cameras. Professional cameras you see news photographers lugging on their shoulders are pretty heavy. This approach, lowering your center of gravity and shifting your weight consciously from leg to leg, allows one to walk with a smooth glide producing less camera shake. You get a freedom of movement that a tripod cannot emulate. Your shots gain a fluidity that you can only draw on a storyboard as a curve. 

The other major focus of Ryan’s class was to bring in the concept of Earthscore to video production. He has several video examples at his site, earthscore.org.

While at the Sequatchie Vally Institute a few weeks ago, I thought of Paul while shooting this video. The camera was much smaller than the one we used back then. This video doesn’t have a lot of camera movement in it, but is full of movement. What I’m doing here is describing the water.

This is a bit of a stretch, but conceptually, the stream bed, this medium and this conversation with each other is a fluid transfer of nutrients, ideas, stories, experiences.

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Indie Crafters’ Experiences

(Water balloon + a cold night = Priceless.)

This photo of ice was taken on a quiet morning after an event of lunar celebrations and other indie, crafty-like experiences called “Dreamtide” in Ashville, NC. We met up with traveling puppeteers and acrobats who flew Red1 and Red2 into the air with their feet and taught them how to soar  with aerial silks. The girls love making functional items that they can trade with. Red2 walked around I.C.E. (see below) and traded out quite a bit of loot with the other vendors. The vendors prefer actual money, but Mrs. SF Daddy had some really cute “Sneaters” to trade that year.

I love this video showing us, I.C.E. There’s a lot of plaid in it, but don’t hold that against us.

I-C-E, the Indie Craft Experience, based in Atlanta is a lot of things. Our friend Shannon is part of the team that created and curates this experience for us the crafty consumer AND us as the crafty creators. I couldn’t explain it better than they do, so here’s a quote from their own site:

With a vision to provide indie crafters an opportunity to sell and promote their creations in Atlanta, ICE quickly caught on as a favorite event for participants and attendees alike. ICE is a grass-roots effort, organized by two Atlanta crafters – Christy Petterson of a bardis and Shannon Mulkey of Patina. Inspired by indie craft markets in Chicago and Austin, the Indie Craft Experience was founded in order to provide Atlanta with a major indie craft event.

This is a long video, but at the ICE site, there’s a long list of events they do all year round. I have quite a few friends who needed ICE to “pop-up” for them. I hope my crafty-pals finally take the hint and leap in, sign up, and get a table to sell their neat items.

Mrs. SF Daddy is totally a maker. She’s a frequent to sporadic participant of I.C.E.

Lot’s of links today, but, hey, you wanted to know all this stuff, right?

What do you do with your glue devices?