More and more, I’m finding that it’s going to be very appropriate that I move with the camera. So far the camera has been stationary, even though I’ve changed angles and tightness, the camera has been stationary through the whole first act.
 
In my reading today, Francis Schaeffer was marking a significant change in filmmaking that was influenced by philosophical rationalism, which says that humans are in a machine and they really have no freedom, creatively or otherwise. 
 
Bergman‘s film the silence “is a statement of the belief that man is really dead. It introduces a new kind of cinema ——-the camera eye simply looks at life and reports it as meaningless in non-human terms. The film is a series of pictures with no human statement connected with them.”
 
It seems to me that the choice of making the camera stationary as an inanimate object in act one will be sharply contrasted by the camera as I move it in act two, which may give the footage a very different relational feel. I think it could be really significant.
 

Dreaming about a new seating area in our master bedroom...and maybe a wallpaper accent wall...

Update 01/08/2026: I've ordered the furniture in this design board. The thing I'm waiting on is the wallpaper, only because it is sure to be expensive and then I need to hire someone to install it. There's no way I'm pretending that I can do it myself. The one element that I'm unsure of is the accent pillow. On its own, I love this print, however, I remain uncertain if it will really complement the chair and, more broadly, the rest of the room. Maybe I will take more pictures of the broader room elements to reflect visually before deciding or hunting for another pattern. 

Ever since I read Karen Swallow Prior's biography on the life and work of Hannah More, I have longed to find a group of artistically-minded, research scholars to share work with and generate critical feedback of my writing and choreography. I sought a community interested in the good, true, and beautiful. I have finally run across just such a society of women and, as an added bonus, they invoke Hannah More and The Blue Stocking Society, an informal literary, social, and educational women's movement in the 18th century. As a writer of fiction, poetry, and theatre, Hannah More was a prolific writer and worker to promote education for children and even worked alongside William Wilberforce in the Abolition Movement. Full of small contributions, More became my inspiration to accumulate a life of meaning and purpose in art, an outcrop of my Christian faith, no matter the smallest of tasks. 

It is important not to elevate an artists' work above others' work. Ultimately, art has incredible power to feed the soul; a very important part of being human. But, is the calling of an artist somehow more spiritual or have a supernatural ethos above other callings? ​

​It’s always a pleasure for me to see new movers in new spaces. Such was the performance of Dimensions Variable, Gabrielle Lamb’s company, Pigeonwing Dance at the Moody Center For The Arts on October 9, 2025.  For just a quick commentary about the Q&A session following the performance. I tend to think Q&A’s are ripe with opportunity to see how the audience and artists connected throughout the performance. As always, this audience had thoughtful questions to ask. One audience member asking about the planning, choreography, and improvisation processed in the gallery space with Tishan Hsu’s exhibit of “Bio Morphe”. The questioner marveled at how the improvisational segments timed perfectly with the music. 
Dancers, in turn, marveled in response with delight at how serendipitous their movement production in real time seemed to respond to the movement and vice versa. While it is, indeed, one of the great delights of developing a dance piece inside improvisational scores, I would argue that it is not serendipitous. It is the nature of improvisation work; a result of the practice of improvisation and the lengthy efforts that dancers invest in training for sensitivity to movement, music, various environmental stimuli, and, most of all, internal response of their bodies for the work. I am not chastising these dancers for not realizing this, I’m simply noting this moment of epiphany and delight that they found these delicious moments within their project. Dance on, Lovelies, it was beautiful. 

"[There is an] idea that shame needs to be defeated by pride and self-love. When we're living in shame and embarrassment and when we try to turn that shame into a pride, either way, your still living under the slavery of what other people think of you, rather than in the true freedom that we have in Christ." 

However, at the time, I did not feel as if I had personally come to a complete resolution within my performance of the piece. I was uncertain if the choreography lacked some unresolved element or if this dissolution was a part of the performance process. I think one of the reasons the duet did not feel finished to me was because I did not reach the stage where I was reconciling my performance choices with the choreography. Sometimes that changes a few details of the choreography but usually it is more about underscoring the intent with performance choices. These choices solidify the concept within the piece. For me, if I have the chance to really delve into the performance process it feels more complete. It may have just  needed one more block in the build, one more piece in the puzzle. It is somewhat regretful to me that I was unable to get there and now it has been 6 years since that performance. I am not saying that it was not a good performance experience in many other ways. In fact, the cumulative ways in which the performance did feel satisfactory overrides this feeling of lack. But, nonetheless, it is something I still think about and wonder if there were a way to resurrect the work and continue exploring its themes. It may be ironic that the purported themes in the work actually came to fruition in real life. It was connection and disconnection, desire and failure through art, yet, in the wild. ~ RBJ

​One of the hardest aspects of grief is the collateral damage of a significant loss. In addition to the person who died, some people lose cursory relationships such as mutual friends of your loved one, couple friends that don’t know how to move on with only you and not your spouse, the widow of the parent you lost, or even whole groups of, what I call, “club friends”.  Acquaintances that you run into frequently simply because you have children in the same grade or always talk with before church, etc. Club friends often have no idea how to include you or check on you while you’re still sad. That’s normal, though shallow and, frankly, unhelpful in any real sense. These periphery losses can affect the way you grieve and whether the process is overall healthy. While this is simply a reflection of personal observations, it acknowledges the non-linear messiness of grief. This is not a way to stoke that embers of grief to keep it alive, as if to wallow in the pain and define oneself by sadness. It’s an acknowledgment; a virtual nod of authenticity, a lingering look, and a decided exhale before stepping on down the path, a warm glow of sunset on the back.