Friends On Friday PresentsLatrice Fowler 12/21/07

Latrice, we have never met in person but I feel like you are family. Your spirit just
exudes warmth, love and grace and I am so grateful to have met you!
Thank you so much for saying that. I really think
that we’ve been put together for a reason. I thank
GOD everyday for placing me with people like you. GOD
Bless!

When you cook, do you cook with the same spirit of love and fervour?
I really do! I love seeing the enjoyment in people’s
faces when they’ve tasted my food. They’re
expressions show their love for the food I’ve spent so
much of my time and love into making. I get more of
my own enjoyment from watching reactions then I do
creating tasty vittles.

What are your passions?
_ GOD!
_ Self-Love (Becoming the person I’m suppose to be!)
_ Family
_ Present & Future Legacy
_ Being a Positive Community Figure

We met on the WomenforHire network, which has been such a great networking tool, had
you begun your entrepreneurial quest or were you motivated to accomplish things frommeeting the women there?
The Women For Hire Network has been an exceptional
networking tool for everyone that has been privileged
to find it. My mother is so big on networking and
after seeing a segment on GMA about WFH I immediately
logged on to the site and signed up. Although I had
already started developing my businesses before
joining WHF, it has definitely helped grow, and several
opportunities have evolved from being apart of that
online community.

What are your aspirations?
_ Obeying GOD
_ Continue to love and respect myself!
_ Elevate my family to our highest potential, and
continue to build our legacy!
_ Inspire the uninspired!

Tell us a bit about your businesses.
Fowlerville Publishing – A digital publishing
powerhouse. (Launching and excepting new clients
April08)
1. Raising Chefs…not just good cooks! (eCookbook)
2. ModelGirlUSA eMagazine (My daughter’s modeling
magazine, for girl about girl ages 6 – 14)
3. Blackpreneurs Social Network/eMagazine
4. Dirty South Locals eMagazine (Hip Hop Culture)
5. Macaiah eMagazine (Premier Client)
_ Going Pro @ Home Productions
1. Raising Chefs DVD Video
2. Food Photography & Food Styling (Print/Web)
3. Southern Artist Promotional Videos
_ Other Non-Business (Self Promotion)
1. Weekly Column – Un World Radio Show Magazine
(Latrice’s Tasty Treat Thursday)
2. DoubleDutch Magazine Recipe Submission DEC & FEB
3. Girlz In Transition Recipe Submission
4. Radio, Print, Online Interviews & Features
Other things are also in the works, so stay tuned, because
there are more wonderful and exciting things up our
sleeves.

How do you see your pursuits positively affecting your children? They are so involved,
what a great education.
I wanted them to be surrounded by someone who was
positive and making dreams become a reality. They
have absorbed everything they’ve seen me do and have
come up with goals of their own. They’ve executed
those dreams and goals and are now seeing them come
full circle. They believe that if you work hard at
something you love and understand that things will get
hard along the way. Sticking with it will expose
sacrifice and dedication. They are the most awesome
kiddos I’ve every met and I thank GOD everyday for
trusting that I would be a great fit as their mother!
What are some of your short-term goals for the civil rights work you do?
_ To continue to be able to mobilize our resources. Be
in a position to help were there’s a need. Create
awareness on issues within our communities.

What are the long-term goals?
Basically the same as the short-term goal. Raising awareness is an ongoing focus!

Latrice, Have a wonderful holiday! Thank you SO, SO much! We will check in with you soon! Kiss the kiddies and all the best to your family!

Friends On Friday Presents Janet Snell! 12/14/07

Self-portrait by Janet Snell

Janet, you mention on one of your sites that you began art with oil
painting in the 70's. What prompted you to take an art class? What were youinto before that? Anything artistic?? What influenced you?
I went to the Maryland Institute College of Art, and studied with the
abstract expressionist Edward Dugmore. He, and the city of Baltimore
inspired me. I have the link to an interview he did for the
Smithsonian on my Scattered Light
blog that will help you to see why. It reflects his iconoclastic
personality. By the way, the photo of Cheryl and me on that blog was
taken by his wife Edie in their New York loft.

You and Cheryl have this phenomenal ability to capture and hold an
audience's attention delicately ( when I am observing both your works I feel
cradled and safe like I'm a baby free to experience whatever it is you both
are sharing--even if its not something nice), was your home life suitable
for encouragement of the arts, or did you both cultivate the love forexpression later in life?
Throughout our childhoods, Cheryl and I painted for fun with our
mother, an excellent realist painter. Our dad did not paint, but he
did write stories with an Edgar Allen Poe feel, and played many
musical instruments. He was even in a Dixieland band with some other
physicians once. He was the one who got me started on the violin. He
was a great influence and inspiration--he had a dark sensibility
balanced with a huge sense of humor. He died at 52, after suffering
with heart disease all of his life.

My sister and her work is another influence.I think in images and she
can extend the metaphor with words, so a collaboration between us is
more like two takes on a similar idea, instead of one art explaining
the other. I send her photos of whatever I'm working on, and if the
idea sparks a response in her, she'll make a poem for it, then send it
back to me for comments. The work on the Admit 2 site happened that
way.

Does your environment inspire you? Please give us a little insight as to how you work and what motivates your visions.
Often, I'll make drawings of images, which may come from musing about
the man/woman thing, or from listening to Hendrix, Dylan, or the
Doors, or from reading Jean Genet, for instance. Those images will
find their way into my linocuts or paintings, sometimes intact,
sometimes altered. Funny, but classical music doesn't bring up actual
images for me, although it does give me ideas.

What are you working on right now that you can share with us?
Right now I'm working on my third volume of art and words. It's
tentatively called "At The Gates", and I've attached the painting of
the title piece for you.

At The Gates by Janet Snell


Can we check in on you from time to time?
I'd love to be checked on! Thanks so much for this opportunity.


More images can be seen here

This has been wonderful! Thanks, Janet!

Friends On Friday Presents ~ KELLY MADIGAN ERLANDSON 12/7/07

Photo of Kelly Madigan Erlandson, LADC, courtesy of Helen Stringfellow


Your site details a series of creativity retreats that seem very ruminative, almost like a pensive adagio, how did you come to this approach? They seem so wondrous!
Thank you. The workshops/retreats have been a collaborative effort. For my part, I have tried to create experiences for people that I myself have needed: great discussion about the creative process; time in or near the river; a day of quiet, side-by-side writing. These were things I longed for in my twenties, but I didn’t yet know how to manifest them.
The rich part of it, from my end, is the community of interesting people that have been drawn together by these occasional offerings. I have benefited greatly from our campfire discussions.

Kelly's Writing Workshops

Kelly, you have shared recently that you have begun exploring Nebraska rivers. Tell us about that. Does it provide tranquility for life's stressors? Does it serve as inspiration for material? Or is it just about peace and enjoying creation -- OR all of the above! Feel
free to expound.
From my earliest memories, I have needed to spend time in wild areas. I have a theory that the human body, the mammal body, is designed in concert with the earth, and requires direct connection with the planet to recharge and inform itself—much like a docking station for an IPod or Blackberry. So many of us live lives removed from natural states. We walk on asphalt and concrete; we live and work in buildings, sometimes several stories or more above the earth’s surface. We are raised up from the ground by our vehicles, separated from our natural environment by rubber and steel.

I have searched for ways to remedy this in my own life. I need the energy and the information that direct contact with the ground provides. Many Nebraska rivers are remote and isolated places, and exploring them by canoe or kayak insures I will be climbing up and down muddy banks, and will be sleeping in places where I can hear the coyotes in the middle of the night. Due to my novice kayaking skills, it also insures I will be occasionally baptized in river water.

My goal is to canoe or kayak every navigable Nebraska river. I’ve been on ten of them so far.

What have you found on your journeys?
I have been teased about my interest in scat, but the truth is I love nothing more than the opportunity to tear apart a pile of animal droppings with two sticks and try to determine what animal left it, and what it might have been eating recently. I collect jawbones, and I love the patterns on wild turkey feathers. I’ve been known to bring home the sun-bleached skull of a small animal, which sometimes freaks out my family members.

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Thanks Kelly! My prayers and thoughts are with Nebraska during this difficult time ~ Good Luck to you, please keep us posted on all of your great endeavors~~~