Nature Journals – Zane Kathryne Schwaiger

Hiding

One of my children doesn’t love to be photographed right now, and I am trying my best to respect that but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Amie and I took a botanical watercolors class with Maia Hausler at the Old Art Building together. We learned so much, and it was an absolute treat to have three uninterrupted hours with my girl, two afternoons in a row!

Painting Together

Taking an afternoon off from cleaning to gather around the table together with dear family, and paint.

Leftovers

I’m cleaning out a
cupboard of watercolors
and art supplies
and nature journals
and clay, and I am cleaning
but this is what I end up doing
instead:
laying out the bits and pieces
of a homeschool year
as a sort of still life
on the kitchen table,
and admiring all the little
reminders of a creative life
lived here
in the this home
filled with birdsong
and love.

Catching Up in April :: Reflections on My Daily Photo Project

I’m behind in posting my daily photos this month. There is so much life happening here every day — homeschooling, games, play, getting ready for spring, house projects, spring snow, more spring snow . . . and I’m catching just little bits of it on the camera.

Recently, the girls were looking through some photo books from the past couple of years with Wallace, and as I listened to them reflecting on the pictures, and remembering moments together, I realized how these daily photos have — collectively — come to mean something to them.

I started a 365 project in 2016 primarly for myself. These were my goals then: To nurture my creative voice. To encourage myself to see beauty in our everyday life. To be an active part of a photography community. And to see my family more deeply, with more dimension, and with more reverence.

When I continued taking daily photos in 2017, my goal was “to keep practicing the arts of photography and writing and use these tools as a way to pay attention and express gratitude.” I’ve continued in 2018, with a similar goal. Taking photos does help me to pay attention. Seeing though the lens of a camera has become one of the very important ways that I practice gratitude. Because of this, these photos matter deeply to me.

But years from now, I hope these photos will also matter, in different ways — in ways I maybe cannot imagine — to my children.