Musings Archives - Barbara Byrge

24 Apr

Becoming The Artist – More Editorial Photography

In some images, I feel my own journey to become an artist and to define myself in those terms. The baring of a soul that comes with creating art, and posting yourself right out there for the world to see. Still not quite ready to show the face. I don’t suppose anyone would like these images and that is why I created them. Just to have the space to make something I wanted to make without regard to getting ‘likes’ or paid or anything else. I like to use my artistic voice to show emotions thougths and ideas we don’t see everday. Things beyond the ‘happy people being happy’ that comprise the bulk of our newsfeeds. Don’t get me wrong, I love happiness and capturing it for others fills me with purpose and excitement and joy! But I’m a complex character with a full range of emotions, and there is a B side to life. Stress, worry, anxiety are players in this modern world and just about everyone I know is riddled with one if not all 3. I want to capture the way we really feel. I capture the happy sunny stuff in my professional role, this is my artists space to make things that are a little more moody. I was playing around with my shutter speed trying to capture not a crisp representation of what is actually there, but a blurry pattern of light and shadows that makes you feel something you can’t exactly put into words. So here is an image that speaks to the variety of emotions we all experience everyday, especially the darker feelings we don’t take selfies of.

‘Mixed Emotions’ by Barbara Byrge

These images are made in camera, only levels and tones were adjusted in post. No cutting pasting or cloning or stamping or warping was done to my these images.

By Barbara Byrge Musings My art The B Sides art editorial photography barbara byrge artist the barbarazzi, barbara byrge artist editorial art
15 Apr

Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Here are some things about me you might not know about me.

Positivity is my thing. I believe in the power of love and the brain’s ability to find what it seeks, so I believe if you actively look for opportunity, love luck and light and you will find it! I had some powerfully negative experiences lead me to this path, and I studied a book called ‘The Happiness Advantage’ to learn the deatilas on how positivity leads to succes!

I am the last of 5 siblings. My eldest brother is 11 years older than me.

I am the first in my family to attend and graduate from college. I graduated class of ’00 from UCSB with a BA in Psychology and Arnold Schwarzenegger signed my diploma (he was governator at the time).

My father worked in Liberia West Africa for more than 4 decades, I have a Liberian step mother named Martha.

I visited Liberia in 2005 and was one of the few American women in country. Children would run alongside my Dad’s truck to get a glimpse of me. There is a video shop in Neezoe named ‘Bobra Video Shop’ which they named after me, for some reason. I think I was supposed to send videos. I will be sending educational videos, perhaps a little late for the success of Bobra Video Shop.

I used to work in Media Services, and can connect and troubleshoot all kinds of TVs, VCRS, and well as computers and peripheral devices.

I was employed as a Barista during college at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and I make a mean latte. I prefer Americano’s myself, all the freshness of espresso at the strength level I’m accustomed to in brewed coffee. Cream no sugar, please.

I succeed at the task at hand, and often go above and beyond. While in school I maintained nearly all As even through college (chemistry and geometery were my achilles heels). When I lead the backpack donations project, I doubled the donations from previous years. When I volunteered for the Professional Women’s Association at UCSB, I eventually became president.

I worked at UCSB for 13 years in IT as a technical support guru. For the last 10 years I worked at the college of engineering supporting Macs and PCs in a Linux based server environment. I am very skilled at troubleshooting desktop hardware and software issues. I did not care much for writing code.

I worked as a Technical Account manager for a software company that manages creates a real estate accounting software product for both residential and commercial and real estate and leared a lot about accounting, leasing, and troublshooting their software! I worked on the eLearning team and wrote classes to help train others.

I tell jokes. I’d have to get to know you probably to tell you the best ones because they are racy. Nothing mean, but sometimes scandalous in nature. These jokes come from a lifetime of Dad jokes and puns that permanently clog up my brain.

I have done some fun volunteer projects over the years. I collected money to buy ‘sweet cases’ for foster kids who are displaced through a charity called ‘Together We Rise’ and donated these cases to a local foster care agency for kids to use. I went to the Transition House in Santa Barbara and brought materials for the kids to do a craft and boxes of costumes so they could pick out Halloween costumes. I have photographed events like Earth Day, and been present during people’s final family vacations and gifted them portraits through the Dream Foundation. I dontated my time to co-chairing conference committees, and thusly planned and executed a several hundred attendee conference on women’s issues.

I have taken photos of people since I was 16 years old. I used to carry a film camera in my purse everywhere I went in high school and it was Chris Gutierrez who first dubbed me ‘Barbarazzi’ for always taking photos. I am a born nostalgic, and sap and photos are all about emotion and memories for me. No matter what else I do in life I will always take photographs. I see the world in still images.

Yo hablo español! My espanol no es perfecto pero, yo se dos cientos palabras y yo quiero usarlo! ja ja!

By Barbara Byrge Happiness Musings
14 Feb

Valentines Day means Love for ALL!

I wrote this note on Valentines Day way back when in an essay style ala the popular school assignment ‘what blah blah blah means to me.’ Its funny to think about how different I was then, 15 or so years ago. I was single at the time, and I wrote this after researching the holiday online and trying to debunk the legitimacy of it all together. So I can’t be accused of being to smug and in love as I am now when writing this. My writing style has evolved a bit since then, but I fought my temptations to rewrite it and just let it fly in all its sophmoric glory. Its the sentiment that counts, I think that’s still spot on. In fact last night at dinner I told Arion this story of St. Valentine, the guy who cared about love in other people’s lives. The story really does resonate with me, and every Valentine’s Day since I try to promote love in everyone’s lives in tiny chocolate ways! And so many of us do don’t we? We get cards and gifts for our Mom’s, our sisters, our friends, grand children, children and their teachers. Its just another day to show love with sweet treats and to that I say a delicious emphatic yes. In my case that will mean spending 2 days making homemade treats to avoid allergens, but I enjoy cooking and sharing love via chocolate so…. (while I’m a bit on the bah humbug side of the Christmas-o-meter), to Valentines Day I say BRING THE LOVE! And by love I mean chocolate ;0)

What Valentine’s Day Means to Me

by Barbara Byrge

For many of us Valentines Day represents a day of expected pleasantries, red and pink flowers, chocolates, and tiny candy hearts that say ‘be mine’. Some call it the worst of the ‘Hallmark holidays’ sensationalized by corporate America in a frenzy to sell greeting cards, teddy bears, lingerie and for the lucky, maybe a Mercedes or a trip to Spain. We take great pride in knowing the historical basis and traditions of our holidays like Christmas, Chanukah, Easter, Independence day, and so many others, yet the story of Valentines day goes untold year after year. The reason for this is simple; the legend is about rebellion, unsanctioned love, and martyrdom. The story of the beheading of St. Valentine is not one you teach to 2^nd grade kids. My teachers always left that out, but I somehow knew that making that construction paper mail box was really, really important and if I didn’t I’d be left out of something really special. I realize now I was left out of something special, the true story behind the day.

Most believe that the holiday as we know it is a celebration of the life of service of St. Valentine. There are 3 St. Valentines commonly revered throughout history, but the one that’s most interesting lived in 270 AD in Rome. He lived under the reign of evil King Cladius II who involved his country in many bloody campaigns. Soon, he did not find many willing men to sign up for his army, so he outlawed marriage in hopes that single men would be more likely to enlist. Legend has it that St. Valentine believed in love so deeply that he continued to marry couples in secret. He was eventually caught and ordered to be executed. He spent a good spell in jail, during which time lovers whom he’d married would leave flowers, poems, and gifts outside his prison window to thank him, and to testify to their belief in love. The guard was so enchanted with St. Valentine’s love of love, he even let his own daughter keep company with him in his cell during his last days. He left her a note on the morning of his execution marked ‘love your valentine’ which is a metaphor often used, but little understood.

Even before St. Valentine was beheaded, the Romans celebrated the feast of Juno on February 14^th each year. She was known as the queen of the gods and goddesses and also the goddess of women, marriage. Pagans observed that birds picked their mates around mid-February, and started their courting rituals around the same time. When people say ‘love is in the air’ they are talking about the magic of spring. This phenomenon of animal lust, pair bonding and general altruisim are best defined by what the rabbit ‘thumper’ in Bambi. When Bambi asks what’s wrong with the birds cooing and circling each other, thumper happily explains ‘they are twitter-pated.’ He couldn’t explain it in words, but the magic of spring infects even the most unsuspecting beasts! Perhaps that was Claudius’ reason for choosing such an important day to have St. Valentine killed. Perhaps he intended to send a message to the world that love was not going to be tolerated. Claudius’ murder of St. Valentine did send a message about love to the world. A message that has carried on for thousands of years: Love will live forever in our bleeding hearts, and always serve to remind us that money, power and status are not the most important things in life. Some people are willing to sacrifice their life for love. Not just for love in their own lives, but to see the cause of love promoted to the highest degree possible. That’s what Valentines Day means to me!

Reference:

Here is a link from History.com that tells this story.

By Barbara Byrge Happiness Musings Uncategorized