I Freaking Love Sneakers
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| May 15, 2013 |
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| beautiful legs of a Black woman |
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| Beautiful legs of an Ebony beauty in white |
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Elegance of Black Women
Amour Créole Magazine
http://amourcreole.com/
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| Lara dress with Pintuck shoulder/drape detail made of Italian wool |
http://amourcreole.com/
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| Elegance of BLACKSunny gown made of Italian wool with Pintuck detail |
PLAY OF DEATH & LIFE
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| Kathryn B. Malone This concept speaks to... "what do you mean this isn't the kidney removal patient?!" |
I was trying to make my expression as uncomforting as possible, but I did feel bad for the poor fella so wrapped a bandage around his head and almost thought about covering his eyes so he couldn't watch!
Taylor Amen yes you're right, I believe we all need to keep each other uplifted and laughing so that way we don't cry about living here! Hence why I love to make art! Living in our city I can see why it's easy for people to become depressed and jaded just by watching our nightly news alone! Here our news is so hell-bent on focussing on all of the terrible people and things about our community so our media would have to change to promote a better way of life and to also remind us that there are good people in our society too and quit giving all the assholes all of the attention! - Kathryn Bivens Malone
WE ARE WHO WE CALL OURSELVES!
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| Tanya Hayes July 9, 2013 |
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| Alice Doll Tyson July 21, 2013 |
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| Penny Gamble-Williams, elder & radio talk show host January 1, 2013 |
Friday, May 30, 2014
AS A MAN, A BLACK MAN
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| An older man, a Federal policeman, I knew told me once then twice that Black people weren't free. "Anyone whose freedom is handed to them isn't free..." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories |
Nick Biddle escaped from slavery and in 1861, he wore a uniform, traveled with his employee’s company to Baltimore to help protect Washington, D.C., after the surrender of Fort Sumter. Once there, he was set upon by a pro-Confederate mob, attacked with slurs and a brick that hit him in the head so severely it exposed his skull. Some consider him the first man wounded in the Civil War. - Lioness Daiba Sala
SEX WARS within. . .
Whiskey & Rye Photography
US Staff Sergeant John Ferris on his bunk at Nettuno, Italy, in April 1944, with a fine collection of pin ups.
"During the war campaigns of this century American soldiers could not receive any political information, or news that promoted thought outside of the extensive war efforts to conquer in the Middle East. What they could receive was pornography. The average soldier could be penalized viewing pornography, but was allowed to watch it, and not allowed, in particular, to commit adultery, or fornicate. Despite the need for sexual release in violent and stressful conditions the Puritanical restrains strained and contradicted human nature, and many unfortunate things happened soldiers may or may not talk about." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 6.2.13
US Staff Sergeant John Ferris on his bunk at Nettuno, Italy, in April 1944, with a fine collection of pin ups.
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| During World War II cigarettes alleviated stress as did photos of popular Hollywood actresses, and pin ups. 1941-1945 |
"During the war campaigns of this century American soldiers could not receive any political information, or news that promoted thought outside of the extensive war efforts to conquer in the Middle East. What they could receive was pornography. The average soldier could be penalized viewing pornography, but was allowed to watch it, and not allowed, in particular, to commit adultery, or fornicate. Despite the need for sexual release in violent and stressful conditions the Puritanical restrains strained and contradicted human nature, and many unfortunate things happened soldiers may or may not talk about." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 6.2.13
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| Captain America's wife? April 14, 2013 |
Cause of Effect
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| Oh, my God in heaven! I've never seen this picture of Bern Nadette Stanis before! Did someone hide it from public view? She is still the exceptional personality and beauty in Hollywood. As she has aged she has matured and deepened. That is a testament of her cultural legacy and the work ethic she has left in place for other Black actors to look at, study and emulate. - Gregory E. Woods (11.4.13) |
Cause of Effect is the science of attraction, hypnosis and seduction. - Dawn Wolf
BLACK MAN BLACK MUSIC BLACK WOMAN
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The African woman naked is music, and Life. The African man is music, and Life. Two combined forces of Nature tamed by no one. Contained by no one. If you need to believe it is contained it will appear so, but Africa's soul belongs where it needs to be creating new life. This is the soul of Africa, and her children. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2013
Thursday, May 29, 2014
IT HAPPENS
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| May 28, 2013 http://www.lolitagram.com/ |
"If a man is aging properly a number of things are altering the physical and the spiritual landscapes. Every phase of his developing life is an alive observer. The young man shy and gawking at older women is there as well as the little boy who wants his toys for himself before he can share them with anybody.
Boys, it is hoped, grow up, and when they become men change and are changed profoundly by women. If the journey is an evolving one the look into a young woman's face is a journey capable of evoking a need to understand what is in there precious, and true needing to be protected, and challenged to shore up strengths to protect weaknesses because an unguarded strength is a double weakness.
Manhood is as complex a work of art as a woman's sacred journey. Comparative studies, or comparisons pitting men against women pale in the light of understanding growth and empowerment." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.29.13
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| beautiful legs of an older woman in the park |
A Woman I Loved
"Every thought was sensual, and hers. The aroma, and the feel of her moods filled the space between her body and mine with ease, and poignancy. It poured out of her waters of essence with a single lilting quality wooden flutes play to the four winds, or bamboo chimes dangling in the wind from a veranda. At times the touch of her spirit seeped out. Other times touching her gave it all new dimensions. Giving into her requests swept over thinking the way her suggestions felt like hibiscus scented mist spreading around her body. She teased learning out of the reluctant. How? You, or I couldn't discern how it just happened like that..."
~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4.24.13
MAYA means illusion...
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| a joyful moment a good hearty laugh. Maya Angelou |
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| Maya Angelou singing as a young woman. |
"As she aged many of us moved along with her evolution and didn't notice that her aging process produced the evolution of beauty in an engaging way that affirmed life..." - Gregory E. Woods 5.28.14
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| Maya Angelou. Nothing beats a great pair of legs. . . |
"You hear her words and feel her wisdom and try to plunge into the depths from whence she comes and forget how fine she was. There were whole chapters of her life to be studied and serious subjects any question asked of and about her that would lead one to clarity into spheres of power...
It is a strange weird feeling losing true Elders from this lifetime." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
POISED
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| Halle Berry attends a dinner in honor of Halle Berry as she joins Michael Kors and the United Nations World Food Programme to help fight world hunger. The event was held at The Pool Room at the Four Seasons on April 6, 2013 in New York City -- Getty Images |
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Words from Maya Angelou
"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love."
"The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free."
"I'm a woman Phenomenally."
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| Regal Maya Angelou in white. . . |
"Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."
"Nothing will work unless you do."
"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."
"While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated."
"My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return."
SACRED MAN
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A Land's End model wearing a bittersweet colouredWomen's Plus Size Ponté Cowlneck Dress. |
It takes an exquisite beauty to create the feel of an ensemble cast of spells upon a man's spirit to attract the priestcraft of a type of man, who senses and embodies the yoke of being taught and the freedom of learning anew. The She of a Woman is not vexing to his spirit. It enhances and tells him stories. She is the revelations to come into his life. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 12.28.13
A moving story
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The same Land's End model wearing a bittersweet colouredWomen's Plus Size Ponté Cowlneck Dress as seen from behind! |
"Beauty is a secret in an open field where all can pray and wonder about it." - Gregory E. Woods
NAUGHT & NICE TO ME
The overriding question is what is your ideal naughty neighbor?
I was putty in her hands. Mrs. S. (that is her first initial. She is still alive) was sexually interested in me from day one. I was only 19 years old. A virgin, and full of cum, desire, passion and dreams. She was an older white woman with a ruddy complexion, wide and brown expressive eyes, stringy brown hair worn like a wild horses' mane, and a wiry body that seemed to float, and undulate more than anything else. For years I remembered every sensuous move of hers, and for the longest time could recall every time she came physically close to pulling me down, and in between her sheets, or legs, and failed. Her breath stayed with me, and on command I could conjure it and every other sensation she inspired within me to the surface. I could bring it alive with ease.
She was not a discriminating woman. She didn't wave any politics in the air. She like living in Africa. She took care of her children, and her husband well enough. They loved her, but she made little effort to hide her burning desire to fuck my brains out, and leave me senseless on the floor. I wanted in her real bad. I ached for it, but was held and bound by a commitment to something higher and stronger than Mrs. S.'s formidable sexual powers.
Her presence, her insistence, her raging passion, her suggestions, and the sweet subtle scents that stirred me when she'd part her legs when seated in front of me created enormous tensions. She pulled at my loins without ever touching them. She'd look at them, and with every inch of her body, and every expression on her face told me how much she wanted me in her, on top of her, behind her. She was an incredible lover in my dreams of her. She made those dreams torturous because it would have taken no effort to be her lover. No effort at all. All I had to do was submit. And had I she would have made me into a particular type of man her being the first.
I will never know what would have become of me, or what I'd have felt like at the end of the relationship given the type of initiation I had at 14 and 15 years of age, and the way I loved, and thought of myself. I'll never know how she, and her pussy, her loving, her attention to my soul, the danger, and the pleasure of it all would have rippled into my life, and the Medicines I was to carry.
Thinking about it now raised my heart rate. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4.3.13
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
BIRTH is mediated in the Waters
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| meditation of a pregnant Reyna |
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| Medicine Wheel of Waters & Lovers from Gracielle Grace Talbot |
Diane von Fürstenberg, early life
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| Diane von Fürstenberg |
Diane Simone Michelle Halfin was born in Brussels, Belgium to Jewish parents. Her father was Romanian-born Leon (Lipa) Halfin, who immigrated to Belgium from Chişinău (then Bessarabia province of Romania and now the capital of Moldova) in 1929.[4] Her mother was Greek-born Liliane Nahmias, a Holocaust survivor. Just 18 months before Diane was born, her mother was in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Diane has spoken broadly about her mother’s influence in her life, crediting her for teaching her that “Fear is not an option.”[5] Diane later studied economics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. She then moved to Paris and worked as an assistant to fashion photographer’s agent, Albert Koski.[1] She left Paris for Italy to work as an apprentice to textile manufacturer Angelo Ferretti in his factory, where she learned about cut, color and fabric.[1] It was here that she designed and produced her first silk jersey dresses... [source: Wikipedia]
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| Diane von Fürstenberg, born 1946, pictured in 2009. |
Monday, May 26, 2014
DAY OF MEMORIAL
The memorial day celebrations further compound the ideological inconsistencies of American concepts of freedom. The deepest mourning is in the souls of men who survived the wars, and their families who suffered losses of family members to American wars. No matter what person says a mindless cliche in the hope of being in solidarity with our soldiers few have the courage, or insight in many cases to see that the soldiers are mere cannon fodder, and that most of our military conflicts are invasions into and upon other people's land. How we turn our soldiers into heroes is not ours to do, or believe in. It is the soldiers who have the right to make those distinctions in the hell of combat where reality is terror, and decisions to kill, survive and suffer the soul loss from taking life are acted in the war theater. Civilians making pitiful attempts to reach out and say, "Thanks for your service." remain pitiful at best, but are patriotic in the American sense of the word.
American Patriotism is about denial and loyalty to the justification of invasion, and the defense of the country is about quelling the overwhelming and deep sense of being on the wrong side of the great moral issues of invading. This is the dilemma of white Euro-Americans and has been for centuries. American Indians, and Black ex-slaves had and have to wrestle with a host of other contradictions, not the least of which is an inbred sense of needing to get along with whites even at the expense of our own values, at times in history. Scores of Indian nations have been obliterated from existence by the stroke of a pen, the imagination of white Americans landing on Eastern shores, and moving West, on paper. Scores were decimated by disease and bloodletting, and the vengeful spirit of missionaries, and men who married into tribes with the sole purpose of taking land and liberty from people who were once their hosts. This pattern has not changed. Only denial and ignorance has insisted these things don't matter and do not pertain to the cause waging war on people, not countries. It is too convenient to say country rather than people because major predators, which is what Americans are, do not and cannot afford to see the people.
This the memorial day for me: the death of ideals, being a part of the cultural worldview of rendering people invisible by white Americans, and the deep sense of being invisible as an African Muskogee/Absaroka man. As briefly as I can, Memorial Day is one of mourning because of the inconsistencies of how Americans define freedom as invaders.
- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.26.14
Business & Glamour
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| Khloe Kardashian at her launch party 2010 |
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| retired actress Goldie Hawn at 67. photo gallery |
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Painted BLACK
Courtney Paige Photography
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| Courtney Paige worked with photographer, Ryan Cooper, make up artist Ashley Rose, and actress Jordana Largy on this conceptual piece they titled: PAINTED BLACK. |
I had to check and register with myself at the title next to the woman in what I initially thought was deep dark shadow. My next looks at the subject suggested what wasn't obvious and then a quick read and I saw the briefest snippet of your concept. It is a dare to go forth with this concept of darkening a white woman's body to sell an idea, or a product, but in the name of art, or a dream is that OK? If it is will the artists be safe publicly?
I think the challenge should fall upon the viewer to ride through the gamut of emotions, objections, feelings of awe at the sheer beauty of something intangible caught on camera, and wrestle with the facts of and the memories of the 'black face' traditions of vaudeville 100 years ago. Perhaps this photographic journey should be drawn out in the context of history, and the evolution, or stagnation of cultural paradigms and hard held feelings about race, supremacy, and freedom of expression.
It is very different and difficult for artists, healers, and dreamers and musicians to live the way we do. Finding the medium and the sacred space to share the things we've dared explore and tackle and come to grips with is hard, or easy enough. It depends upon who is the listening, or viewing audience. The general population are masses of people caught within the mundane who have yet to peer into the worlds their lives come from. The explorations of a healer, for example, would terrify the average person he/she comes to help. It is not a judgement. It just is this way. We all have our roles and gifts. It is just that in the acceptance of roles the magical people dare to challenge what their perspective audiences fear to look deeply into.
Artists, and creative people, by the nature and force of their insights and direct access to the Dream Time, walk a thin line with our dependence upon making our money through our arts, or regular jobs. The general population surrounding us judges us more than they judge themselves. This leaves the proverbial 'them' with no choices, it seems, beyond being quick to react and slow to reflect and think deeply as each challenge demands of them.
I wish you'd fleshed out this idea of yours, and let others either catch up with you, if you are coming from an enlightened place, or learn from the backlash. Either way it would have been in service to the world-at-large.
These are my words.
- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
African/Muskogee/Absaroka Indian
1.19.14
It is very different and difficult for artists, healers, and dreamers and musicians to live the way we do. Finding the medium and the sacred space to share the things we've dared explore and tackle and come to grips with is hard, or easy enough. It depends upon who is the listening, or viewing audience. The general population are masses of people caught within the mundane who have yet to peer into the worlds their lives come from. The explorations of a healer, for example, would terrify the average person he/she comes to help. It is not a judgement. It just is this way. We all have our roles and gifts. It is just that in the acceptance of roles the magical people dare to challenge what their perspective audiences fear to look deeply into.
Artists, and creative people, by the nature and force of their insights and direct access to the Dream Time, walk a thin line with our dependence upon making our money through our arts, or regular jobs. The general population surrounding us judges us more than they judge themselves. This leaves the proverbial 'them' with no choices, it seems, beyond being quick to react and slow to reflect and think deeply as each challenge demands of them.
I wish you'd fleshed out this idea of yours, and let others either catch up with you, if you are coming from an enlightened place, or learn from the backlash. Either way it would have been in service to the world-at-large.
These are my words.
- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
African/Muskogee/Absaroka Indian
1.19.14
http://www.courtneypaigephotography.ca/blog/?target=952
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| Jordana Largy in black makeup. |
Subtleties of Elegance
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| Eva Longoria, the mystery of in black |
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| elegant brown woman, Denise. |
Saturday, May 24, 2014
MECHANICS
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Bombshell Bonnie March 26, 2013
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Never much for cars or auto repair, but I admired the gifted mechanics.
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