. . . izakoo . . . a . photo . journal: 03.11

20110331

靜著望

等候。

靜著望。

怕驚了它。

八年。

等候。另一個八年。

Thanks yanyan for the beautiful poem and the inspirations.

20110329

MORE AND LESS

papa & mama

The contrasts, tone on tone and details ...
She had made these boring "flash cards" into not so boring artworks ...

More vivid colors ...

Simpler composition ...

Thanks for your inspirations, my dear.

20110328

MY EMBROIDERED CLOTH

From the talk by Sir Ken Robinson (a shared link on my last post), I was struck by his quote on dreams:

“

Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet; But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. ” " And, everyday, everywhere, our children spread their dreams underneath our feet. And we should thread softly. " said Sir Ken Robinson in the talk. " ... We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process. It's an organic process. And, you cannot predict the outcome of human development; all you can do, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish ... " * These images were taken before last summer (early June 2010) ... After a rainy and windy day, unripe fruits were found everywhere on the ground. Iza picked them up and opened to see what they looked like before fully grown ... They were green and sour ... The fruits had not yet begun to flourish before they were taken down by the wind.

20110326

SWIM GALA

Sports day and swim gala are your favorite events in a school year.

Last year, I haven't put them down. This year, I try to do a little record.

(A shot during freestyle contest)

It was surreal to watch you standing on platform to receive your medals. I still remember how astonished I was when I received a call telling me that you were "selected" for a special swimming program in 2009 spring. We (parents and children) didn't know there was such a program. Yan, a coach you had never met before, had been staying by pool side for days to screen children of 5-6 years old. We did not know how a girl who could hardly coordinate her body and limbs was shortlisted with the other 3 children. It was a total mystery. During the training, Coach Yan told me that you had a feel with the backstroke style. Feel. Such a magic word. When I sat by the pool side to watch you all practicing, I learnt to watch water patterns created by the children. When one is in rhythm with water, you can see beautiful streamlines of water current around the body and whirling of water under the surface ... Swim is about in tune with water, how beautiful. After Coach Yan left the team and went back to Beijing for study, we also quitted the training after the summer 2009, just staying in regular class till now. But her words are still whirling in my head, like a spell.

At this year's swim gala, you break the school record of 50M backstroke (junior girl). Last year, you have broken the record of 25M backstroke (junior girl). We shouldn't be too serious about the records because your school does not have a strong swim history. But, obviously, backstroke is your strongest style among the four styles. I recall, the magical words: "you had a feel with backstroke".