Free2Work

Not for Sale, the campaign to end slavery in our lifetime, launches Free2Work, a community of people and businesses committed to ending slavery in corporate supply chains. At Free2Work you can help ensure that companies you support are not taking part in slave labor. Look up a company or report a company and become an instigator of change.

It's time for every company to take The Pledge...
• To have zero tolerance for forced labor inside our company operation
• To develop an anti-slavery corporate policy
• To require all outsource suppliers and contractors to hold the same anti-slavery protocol
• To ensure that the providers of source materials for our products comply with our anti-slavery protocols.
• To monitor our company's compliance with all of the above, and responsibly address any violations.

See an amazing music video by RadioHead which contrasts two different lives: that of a free child (whose lifestyle looks a lot like most of "our" kids) and a slave labor child (whose life is perhaps spent producing some familiar products for the free child?) One boy paints a picture, the other paints glue onto a shoe liner.

Post Oscar

We usually try to catch the Academy Awards, but for the first time we watched the Oscars with a room full of people who had voted online ahead of time. Made it more fun, which was good, because I found the whole TV production to be somewhat lackluster otherwise (though there was plenty of glitz and glamour there!) Tom came home the winner of the mini Oscar and a gift card for the movies. Hope he will share it with me. My favorite part of the show was probably the performance of the music from Slum Dog Millionaire. Now I really want to see the movie. I think I have only seen two of the other movies in the running, so my votes were mostly guesses. Slum Dog, Sean Penn, and Heath Ledger were obvious gimmes.

Congratulations to Meryl Streep for a record 15 nominations. I hope she appreciated all the accolades from her peers, too. I want to see Doubt and I'm thinking about seeing some of her older movies again. I think Kate Winslet is a seriously good actress and deserves the recognition of this win. (photo:AP) Don't know if I'll see The Reader, though. I'm happy for the Slum Dog crew. It's an amazing accomplishment for them (8 Oscars! !Is that right?)

I definitely want to work my way through some of the short films and animations that sound very interesting. If you've seen some, what do you recommend?

Voca Femina goes live!

It's launched! I want to share with you a creative endeavor that I am a part of.

Voca Femina Banner by Jennifer Herrick

What is Voca Femina?
Voca femina means a woman’s voice. The feminine voice is powerful, creative, life-giving, and beautiful. We’re here to celebrate it. We’re a group of friends providing space, audience, and support for the creative voices of women in our world. We've started a creative expressions website for women.
Our vision:
We believe there can never be too many venues for women to try out their voices. We know lots of powerful, creative women who have beautiful things to say, who may never land a book contract, fill an art gallery, or cut a record deal. Voca Femina is about giving us all a place to share, a place to grow. We hope you will listen, respond, encourage, and, most of all, participate.
Our dream:
Voca Femina is a sisterhood of women who fiercely believe in the treasure of creative expression. Creativity belongs to the soul and spirit of every human being, needing a few simple conditions in order to thrive:

• A safe space, free from competition and negativity
• An abundance of support and encouragement
• A few stimulating ideas
• Faith, hope, courage, and love

We aim to create an online community that fosters the creative spirit in and through and for each other, by stimulating, supporting, and posting our treasures. Eventually we hope to publish our works under the banner of Voca Femina, creating print media that reflect the innovation and creative expression fostered through this site.

Check it out and let us know what you think.
I have a couple of pieces on display in the fine art and design sections of this inaugural issue.

If you are in the Denver area you can party with us and celebrate women's voices. E-mail me for info.

Amber day

Colorado has a singular quality of afternoon light that I marvel at. Houses, roofs, trees, and every man-made object and natural living thing become transformed in its glow. Yesterday I really noticed it and jotted down these thoughts:

There was a glorious golden light today on everything outside my reading window in the guest room where I work on my laptop. Unaware of that part of the world until I really focused, my breath was taken away by the dried and browned beauty of the tea roses still standing with their twisted and curled leaves paperlike and moving in the wind. If I leaned in closely near the glass, I could hear birds chirping incessantly as well as the scattered barking of neighborhood dogs and a car engine a few blocks away. I like to sit in this sunny spot to read and am happy to observe the world from here without going out to be chilled by the wind and distracted by the reality of what needs to be done to button up the garden for winter. Winter has been here for quite a while. Only a portion of chores was accomplished before that window of preparatory time passed. It almost feels like winter, too, is passing, though the crabapples are dull red on the bare branches, and several kinds of thyme between the pavers are still shades of gray. The perennial herbs will be the first to green up as the weather warms slightly. But not today. Today lies under an amber veil and individual colors remain desaturated like those in an altered photo. The life inside is suppressed, held back and waiting. I took occasional sunny reading breaks from my web tutorials in the morning, but by afternoon my reading book took over. I felt and watched the subtle path of warm light gradually move across my shoulders to finally form a spotlight on the large aloe plant in the corner. That mother's voice inside my head might tell me I've wasted my afternoon. My soul thinks otherwise.