I first met Hazel in 2009. I grew to know more of her in words on twitter, then images on flickr, then her blog The Asian Welder.

We corresponded in e-mail the most during her road trip in 2009 when she and her mate {Hank} set off in their Airstream trailer on a trip across the west.

We had short chats about her travels. I followed her blog. She disappeared from twitter. Later I found it just took too much of her time. She wanted more to be making art and living. I watched for postings about her doings and viewed her art from the beautiful photos she posted.

I viewed life through her lens. I found great beauty and joy.

In June I visited her blog and found that she was on a new journey. She had cancer. Months have passed and the truth of this journey is more clear. Hazel has chosen to live her life without chemo. To find peace and an end on this earth in the same beauty which she has shown all of us that have know her in some way.

I am saddened to lose this kind soul. But I prepare myself to let go and know that her spirit holds a place in my  heart always. She walks in beauty on this earth.

Aloha Hazel.

hazel colditz, (aka buddhagirlAZ) sculptor, lover of nature the finest art, passionate photographer, mother, Buddhist w/alchemist tendencies.

I missed this retrospective. I miss lots of exhibitions actually. I think that is partly about being focused on making time to make my art. Not an excuse. Just a thought. I was pointed to an online post by @barbaralevine.

It contained this first video from the son’s point of view. A moving recollection of how making art is such an everyday experience and how his exposure to the making of art, the experience of a lifelong ritual of making pictures, created a dialogue that fills the pictures with approachable words. The second video is a conversation with the artist.

Thank you to Barabara for her tweet and thank you to the Whitney for such a thoughtful presentation on the web. Visit the mini site, although these are very thoughtful conversations there is something about looking at the pictures still and silent.

“He didn’t mean for any of his pictures to make any kind of statement. They just are what they are and how he’d like them to look I guess.”

— Winston Eggleston

“I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around: that nothing was more important or less important.”

— William Eggleston

The retrospect mini website:
http://whitney.org/www/eggleston/

Blog site from the tweet:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com

Tags: democraticcamera, retrospective, William Eggleston, photographs, Whiteny Museum