In hard times, there’s a lesson to be learned from the flowers
My yard is starting to pop and soon will be filled with yellow, purple, blue, orange, blue, red and, of course, green.
It’s been a bleak season, but seeing my daffodils unfurling reminded me that this is just a season.
Last spring, a teenage boy in super baggy pants stopped me while I was throwing mulch in the yard.
“I like your yard. It looks like Easter every time I walk by,” the boy of about 16 said.
His comment made my heart smile even though the yard’s beauty is not totally due to me.
I’ve planted some of my flowers and inherited the rest from my house’s previous owner, a masterful gardener.
Right now, the crocus and daffodils are starting to do their jobs. The hyacinths, tulips, peonies and so on will show off their bulbs next.
Humans planted them there and this human maintains them, but when it gets down to it, my flowers are just doing what they are supposed to do.
And that’s expressly what we all have to do.
These are frightening times. There’s no way to sugarcoat that fact.
The coronavirus has already uprooted lives and livelihoods and will continue to do so.
We will not all live to talk about it tomorrow.
We can’t as individuals stop it, but we can do what we are supposed to do and that will make a big difference.
We can be compassionate and check in on neighbors and friends and offer support even from a distance.
We can resist the biological urge to resort to tribalism. Crocus, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, the peonies and so on work together to make a garden look like Easter. Let’s not forget that.
We can share.
This might be the worst thing that has happened, but so was the last worst thing that happened. We got through it, or are at least trying.
Crocus, daffodils hyacinths, tulips, the peonies and so on will unfurl next year and, God willing, humanity will be here to appreciate them.
So many of us in this town were looking forward to a good spring after the horrors of 2019 — the tornadoes, the mass shooting and the rest.
Many of us are now trying to get through to the next season.
How we behave on the journey will show the real strength of beings in a world where flowers stop a kid in his tracks to share his appreciation of beauty and color. hotographer Andy Snow, well known for his vivid images of the Miami Valley arts scene, will receive one of Ohio’s most prestigious honors — the Governor’s Awards for the Arts.
The awards luncheon, originally scheduled for this Wednesday, has been postponed because of coronavirus concerns. It will be rescheduled at a later date when Snow will be presented with the Individual Artist Award.
In addition to his memorable photos of local artists, many will remember Snow’s photographic work in the Dayton Art Institute’s exhibit commemorating the Great Flood of 1913. The Miami Conservancy District commissioned him to revisit scenes of the 1913 devastation to demonstrate how those scenes look today. The show was entitled “Watershed, Then & Now.”
More recently Snow has been documenting the construction and renovation of 18 Dayton Metro Libraries. He also worked as director of photography for “Where the Rivers Meet,” a local music video that celebrated the immigrantfriendly policy of the City of Dayton. Snow says there’s “joy all around” when it comes to photographing our art community’s “rich and ever-changing environment.”
“The Individual Artist awards category allows us to recognize Ohio artists whose work has made a significant impact on his or her arts discipline at the local, state and national levels,” says Ohio Arts Council Executive Director Donna S. Collins. “Artists provide us the ability to examine the world to find clarity, appreciation and possibility. Ohio is a more vibrant, rich and dynamic place to live, work and be educated because of our artists.”
In recent years, Dayton and the surrounding area have had an impressive share of Governor’s Arts Award winners. Recipients have included the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company; writer and poet Sierra Leone; philanthropists Stuart and Mimi Rose; artist and educator Bing Davis; illustrator C.F. Payne; guitarist and teacher Jim McCutcheon; arts supporter Premier Health; educator Joe Deer; visual artist James Pate; science fiction author John Scalzi; and arts patron Morris Furniture Company.
How it began for Snow
Snow’s first connection with Dayton arts organizations can be traced back to 1983, when Dayton Daily News Sunday magazine editor Ralph Morrow hired him to photograph Dayton Ballet artistic director Stuart
Sebastian and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Charles Wendelken-Wilson. The just-released Kodacolor 1000 ASA film, he says, made that possible.
“When I connected with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in 1992, their office and rehearsal space was in Memorial Hall,” he recalls. “For maximum effect we made photos with blackand-white film of rehearsals and concerts due to lower levels of stage lighting.” Snow has been chronicling DCDC performances ever since. Last year he served as creative director for a lavishly illustrated coffeetable book marking the company’s 50th anniversary.
The challenge of photographing dance, he says, is “hitting the apex of a leap with a little movement blur of feet.” Opera can be even more difficult because there are no body cues that indicate the
right moment to shoot. “It’s static — yet with the hint of movement all in an instant,” Snow says. “The pageantry of the staging, the costumes, and the lighting in perfect harmony bathe the lens with rich colorful patterns and contrasts that make opera photos sing. All this while minimizing the ‘tonsil shots.’”
Snow says making photos during a live musical performance is always an extraordinary experience. “My heart beats faster and I am filled with joy and wonder, my brain on fire with the fun and the challenges of exposures, angles and framing. I always return home after a live performance jazzed up.”
Looking back
In his growing-up years, there were homes filled with all kinds of music — classical, swing, jazz, popular, rock ’n’ roll. “That’s because my grandmother, Constance Snow, was an impresario in the late ’40s and early ’50s,” he explains. “She ran the Snow Concert Bureau in Washington, D.C., where she and my grandfather raised my dad and his sisters, booking concerts by the New York Philharmonic; the Boston Symphony; and the Philadelphia Orchestra at Constitution Hall, the home of the National Symphony.” His grandmother worked with Leonard Bernstein and Eugene Ormandy, as well as the Cleveland and Chicago orchestras. She helped with the Inaugural Ball for President Eisenhower
in 1952.”
Snow’s nominator Ron Rollins, Community Impact Editor for the Dayton Daily News, described Snow as “one of Dayton’s most important storytellers … who has been documenting, capturing and sharing the life, work, art and events of the community for more than 40 years.”
Mary Campbell-Zopf, executive director of the Muse Machine, supported his nomination. “For more than 25 years, I have watched Andy Snow quietly and perceptively capture images that reveal the richness of reality,” she wrote. ” His work always makes me stop and see the world and its people in new ways.”
Campbell-Zopf says Snow understands creative people at a cellular level. “That understanding is simply part of his DNA. He is naturally open to the creativity of others and that sensitivity is at the heart of his work and has led to remarkable images.”
Portrait work
In addition to his work for arts organizations, Snow is also a commercial photographer who has created portraits of notables ranging from Jimmy Stewart, Ray Bradbury and Neil Armstrong to John Glenn, Walter Cronkite, Bonnie Riatt and Renee Fleming. His work has appeared in TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, National Geographic, Ohio magazine, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.