What made you love it? by Cathy Zielske

Just musing about this...

I was just reading Cathy's blog recently and she asked the (scrapbooking) question, "What made you love it?" Have a read of her blog post if you'd like to.

Scrapbooking - and finding that scrapbooking balance - has been a huge journey for me.

What? Scrapbooking? A huge journey? Are you serious? It's just a hobby, is it really that important?

Yes and yes.

Sounds petty considering there are a lot of big things going on in our country right now (we've just had the Qld floods and now Cyclone Yasi up north - a lot of destruction basically), but one thing scrapbooking has taught me?

It's the little things that help us cope with the big things.

(It's worth enlarging and bolding)

That's why I craft. It helps.

People exercise/visit friends/make cards/eat healthy/go to movies/do other hobbies/go fishing for the same reason.

It helps. It provides balance, perspective and fun...and other good things too.

That ain't petty, no?

And what about this for someone who indulged their love of art through photography? Her name was Vivian Maier and she was a street photographer in Chicago from the 1950's to the 1990's. She was single. She was a nanny. She took photos on her day off.

The thing is, she didn't show anyone her pictures. She died with a lot of them undeveloped.

A young guy bid on a box of negatives hoping he'd get some pictures for the book he was writing. He had no idea who the photographer was in the self-portraits he discovered. He did a bit of sleuthing and worked out her story.

He now owns 100 000 of her photo negatives.

She was a really good photographer. 

John Maloof (who discovered the negatives) has started a blog called "Vivian Maier - Her Undiscovered Work". You can see some of her photos on there and watch a few news stories on the happenings. There's one video news story on 31 Jan 2011 and one on 22 Dec 2010 (just scroll down a bit for the Dec one - it's easy to find - I liked it the best).

So completely amazing.

I reckon photography was a friend to her, just like scrapbooking is a friend to me. It's a place I visit. It makes me feel good. It fills me up. It gives me an outlet. It's a way of recording.

I totally get it, Vivian. Totally.