Travelin' About

I took on this personal project of photographing what I see as "Beautiful Old Folks" because I wanted practice with my portrait photography and I believed these senior citizens were more approachable than high paid models.  What I've gotten in return is meeting some really cool people! Margaret Cox is a wealth of information on so many subjects.  Having worked as a librarian at UT for 35 years, she knows a lot about Austin and its history and its theatrical scene and so much more. She was there in '66 when Charles Whitman climbed the UT tower and shot 43 people, thirteen who died.  She was getting ready to go to lunch when the excitement began. "There were about 15 of us on the patio of the Academic Center when we heard shots.  Somebody said 'Hey y'all. We better go inside." The siege went on for 90 minutes and she could see people hiding in the bushes as she waited it out.  "35 years there and I was always looking over my shoulder for...

With her sparkling blue eyes, Clara Newby, showed me the "new" art she is selling at The Old Bakery and Emporium .  Clara, who has been an artist for many years, mostly painting flowers, is one woman who is willing to learn new things.  Just recently she has been experimenting with an acrylic art form (see the image on the bottom left) that "works a bit like watercolor" but the paints kind of swirl and take off on their own.  She has an eye for color and which ones work well together. Clara, a longtime volunteer at the Old Bakery, told me proudly that she is turning 94 in the end of March.  Hard to believe as you watch her move and hear her speak.  "I used to drive from Victoria to Rockport for art lessons," she explained to me. She didn't have a clue what she was going to paint until she got there but they always came out rather nice.  She showed me some of the notecards that she sells and I recognized them as ones I had already been attracte...