Mondays are my favorite day of the week. They are the days I get to play with kids. Play with clay. And see one of the sweetest angels on the planet, Jenni Ward.
I’ve been taking clay classes with Jenni, in Aptos, Calif. for 2 or 3 years now.
Through her, I’ve fostered a belief in my own ability to create and be creative.
Thank you Jenni!
We escaped the rain into the Ferry Building. 10 Year old Jared captured these images as we played inside San Francisco’s big market place on the water.
As I delve deeper into my research to conduct Art Therapy in Haiti, I am finding more and more information that points to a lack of playtime in adult lives.
In order to best practice what I am about to preach I know I must do my best to play, play, play.
So last night we stayed in and played with feathers, books, scarves, words and our imaginations. And for once there weren’t adult inhibitor-reducers present. No champagne. No vodka. We did is the old-fashioned way, the good old fun way.
Happy Playing!
An exploration into cooking Thanksgiving Dinner in our underwear.
-Oakland, Calif
In the garden of good and carroll.
Early Morning with markers and love.
My friend Mari’s daughter is one of my favorite playmates. She looks like a cutesie pie strawberry shortcake, but Sufini Linguine is all Darth Vader mixed with Steve Urkell.
I really enjoy the time I get to spend with her.
Loves.
Shot at the Old School House and accompanying fields and ranches nearby, in the late afternoon.
If buildings could talk, the Tassajara School House would tell of children reciting lessons, ciphering and singing in a classic one-room school. Students from Tassajara Valley ranches attended this school from 1889 to 1946.
Students from first to eighth grade walked, rode horses and took buggies to get to school. In 1889 Richard D. Williams was the teacher and 41 students attended that August. Roger Podva (born in 1884) began school in 1890 and said there were 42-75 students at the school when he attended, sitting two to a desk. They learned mental arithmetic, reading, geography, spelling and writing. A picture of George Washington hung on the wall.
Today the School House sits in rural, restored splendor on its original site at 1650 Finley Road in Contra Costa County’s Tassajara Valley. A belfry with bell, old outhouses, a restored stable, picnic tables and a new redwood water tower complete the picture.
I shot photos of Drew and Fifi last week on a splendid Sunday Afternoon. I met up with their moms (kids in tow) at a sweetly restored old school house in Danville.
A little bit about the magnificent school house:
If buildings could talk, the Tassajara School House would tell of children reciting lessons, ciphering and singing in a classic one-room school. Students from Tassajara Valley ranches attended this school from 1889 to 1946.
Students from first to eighth grade walked, rode horses and took buggies to get to school. In 1889 Richard D. Williams was the teacher and 41 students attended that August. Roger Podva (born in 1884) began school in 1890 and said there were 42-75 students at the school when he attended, sitting two to a desk. They learned mental arithmetic, reading, geography, spelling and writing. A picture of George Washington hung on the wall.
Today the School House sits in rural, restored splendor on its original site at 1650 Finley Road in Contra Costa County’s Tassajara Valley. A belfry with bell, old outhouses, a restored stable, picnic tables and a new redwood water tower complete the picture.
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Melissa Schilling
People are talkin', talkin' bout people