My first collage was of Joe Dupuis who is the husband of my dear friend Gail. One of the leagues Joe plays in is the Windsor Essex County Senior Sports Organization at the baseball diamonds at the Ciociaro Club in Windsor.
In fact, at this early exploratory stage, I did two of Joe.
Then I realized that Hector Marinacci, who coached in the same league where my sons played their first little league baseball, was also on Joe’s team. So I had to do one for him as a surprise too.
Hector was over-the-top appreciative and has been encouraging me to do more, telling me how much this collage meant to him. He played lots of sports when he was younger and didn’t think he would be playing baseball at this point in his life.
Over the past few years I often visit Rosaire and JoJo’s lovely garden. It changes with the weeks, with the blooms in season, and I have always been openly welcomed into their well tended, well loved nature space. In gratitude, I also made a collage for Rosaire.
I was one of six local Special Olympics photographers for the Windsor hosted July Ontario Special Olympics. For a few weeks prior to the event, I attended rhythmic gymnastics practices as well as track and field and baseball. Additional collages follow:
The softball team was coached by Marie Mailloux (top left in image below). This collage was made from photographs at the beginning of the season and illustrates many athletes, some of who made the competition team, and some who did not:
Jim Wright (top left of collage below) was the track and field coach and their collage was also made up of people trying out for the LaSalle Spirit team that would represent the area at the Games.
My niece, Wendy Foote, belongs to the Cedar Island Yacht Club in Kingsville and asked me to photograph a regatta on July 18th. I ended up making a collage for her husband of Frank’s sailboat ‘Footloose’.
Last weekend, while visiting my friend Betty in Colchester, her daughter Shelley invited us to dinner. I almost always have my camera with me and can’t resist the allure and invitation of a lovely garden. Hers was no exception. Within the next few days I will present her with a gift collage, topped by a photo of her husband Bill and daughter Faith.
I am also a friend of Shelley’s sister Carol. Last September Carol invited me to a beach party/appreciation day/pig roast. I took many photos, and when transferring them onto my computer, inadvertently deleted them from my SD memory card. One of my Special Olympics photographer friends, Darren, met me at Taloolah for lunch the other day and brought his laptop with retrieval software and was able to bring up the lost images. I was relieved, particularly because I remember being conscious of wanting to get good photos for her. Yes… it follows that I created a collage for her of this event. It shows the care she took in preparing her outdoor spaces for her guests.
All of this…. within less than the past two weeks. Passionate, driven, obsessed? Likely they all fit for the time in which I was creating these pieces of art.
And then there is golf:
I am realizing that the possibilities are endless.
Windsor played host to the Ontario Special Olympics on July 23 – 25th, 2009. As you will see from the links appearing with this item, I took lots of photographs. Some of the photos included in these links are not necessarily the best quality, but if I erred, I erred by including them for the purpose of showing as many of the faces that I saw. Likewise, if any of the athletes, coaches, parents, officials may be looking for images, hopefully they will find them here.
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