29 March

Blues Night, Camera Night

by Jon Katz
Blues Night, Camera Night
Blues Night, Camera Night

We had fun at Blues Night, it seemed the whole town turned up, it was also a good test of my new camera, I shot indoors with no tripod or flash and the camera, which has an ISO range of up to 80,000, had no trouble picking up the light and movement, I shot on automatic burst at 12 shots a second, this camera is going to help me expand my idea of photography.

29 March

Blues Night At The Local Opera House

by Jon Katz
Blues Night At The Local Opera House
Blues Night At The Local Opera House

Last night we went to see the Roadside Blues Band at the Hubbard Hall Opera House, the beautiful old vaudeville hall loving restored over the years by the town residents. Opera Houses in the nineteenth century didn’t mean opera as we know it know, they were so named to distinguish them from saloons. The old hall was packed, chili and corn bread was served, there was a lot of dancing. My small town is astonishing in the things it offers, so many small towns are struggling and Cambridge has plenty of issues, but it is vibrant with a strong sense of community and a wondrous mix of people.

Maria and I had some chili, sat with some friends, I danced  until I got dizzy and sore.

29 March

Return To The Art Gallery Window

by Jon Katz
Return To The Ginofor Window
Return To The Ginofor Window

I took a photo of the art in the window of the Ginofor Gallery yesterday, it spoke to me of art and creativity somehow, and I went back to the window today and pointed my camera just as the sunlight burst through the clouds, and I think I accidently overexposed the photo, or perhaps the sun was just too fast and strong even for my zippy autofocus. When I looked at the photo in the computer I loved it, it spoke to me just as much as the first photograph did. Two different ideas and images about creativity.

Art In A Gallery Window
Art In A Gallery Window

 

29 March

Writing Class: “Your Stories Are Important.”

by Jon Katz
Your Stories Are Important
Your Stories Are Important

My short story class at Hubbard Hall is in its third week – I am really enjoying this class, I think I might teach it again the Fall – two students were sick this week, the rest of us waded in with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, it is a great class, focused, hard-working, creative and helpful to one another. At some point in every writing class I teach, someone – sometimes everyone – tells me they are embarrassed to share their stories, they would never put up a blog, their stories are stupid, meaningless, unimportant, it would be presumptuous, even selfish, to write them or share them with the world.

I have come to recognize this anxiety,  it silences so many creative voices, kills so many stories, it cripples more writers than any greedy or bovine publisher or agent or challenging marketplace. I tell my students – I told them this today – that we all need to believe our stories are important, and we need to separate our fears of being authentic from our feelings about our work. Don’t ever speak poorly of your work, I said, it might hear you. When I met Maria, she did not believe her art was important, she believes it now, and so do many other people.

I believe this idea is formed in us early in life. My mother was a bitterly unhappy and sometimes frightening person, but she loved my stories, she always told me I was a great story-teller, she always wanted to hear my stories and she always made me feel good about telling them. Her gift to me is that I love telling stories and I feel they are important, I never feel they are stupid or worthless, even when they are.

Your stories are important, I told the students, if you don’t believe in them, why should anyone believe in them? Don’t speak badly of your work in my class, not here, I said. Writing is not a mystical alchemy bestowed on the wondrous few, the sacred spark lives in all of us, we all have stories to tell, the job of the teacher is to light the spark, not to snuff it out.

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