I am a fourth generation transplant, my great-grandparents having settled here from Sweden. However, I am a "Heinz 57" variety; Swedish, Irish, Scottish, English, Dutch, and Cherokee. I am investigating my ancestry. My mother's parents came from Oklahoma, and my grandma was born in "Indian Territory". The Perry family is mentioned in the Cherokee listing of applications to the rolls and there is one family listed. There are also applications with the surnames of some of the other of my great-grandparents names there. Maybe someday I will be able to track it all down. I have a teaching credential in art which I received in 1989 at Humboldt University in Arcata, California. This after many years of thinking...I will get back to that one of these days......then, after doing my student teaching, found myself wondering what I was doing there.......my master teacher told me that I should have been a counselor, since the students kept coming to me with their problems......(now they tell me!)...I would have liked that.
But, I then returned home and substituted a bit, and then got a job in advertising for the Valley Post Newspaper in Anderson, California where I grew up. .I worked there for two years and taught students privately in my spare time...and loved that.
In 1993 I moved back to Mt. Shasta, and then moved to Cave Junction, Oregon. I was fortunate to catch the famous "Billow Clouds" on the mountain on October 1996 and then in 1997 started selling photocards in the local shops, just enough to keep buying film and developing it. But that made me go back to my old films and get them developed..(yes I am one of those). I found that I had some pretty cool pictures....and then there was no stopping me....carried my camera everywhere. Stood out in the cold one day on a hill, with wet head and caught pneumonia taking pictures of the mountain. .......I guess we photographers are die-hards...anything for a great photo. I taught my son the rudiments and he got the fever too. We live in the greatest area to take super-spectacular pictures and I know many people who are doing that here too.....so people get quite the treat when they go to Mt. Shasta. I suspect they are also wishing to see the mountain "put-on-a-show" just for them.
A few of my other endeavors.I am just a jack-of-all trades in the art fields: paintings, jewelry, pottery, sculpture, photography, crafts, and have fun doing it all. I just wish I was twins so I could do more. I have also illustrated the covers of two published books by Michael MacPherson. Another great love of mine is poetry and am working on illustrations for some children's books. One book I want to create and publish one of these days will be called "Songs, Seasons and Scenes of Mt. Shasta", filled with photos of the mountain, and the flowers around the mountain and also poetry and songs from myself and others, in my spare time. ............................Kay Ekwall
The Words of a Poet….
Did you ever stop to think.....
does the poet create the dream
or does the dream make the poet?
Timeless sound meander, roam
through the minds of poets
weaving magical realities
from otherwise ordinary scenarios.
Hearts which otherwise remain locked,
doors closed, and numb....
somehow are touched by poets.
Tears flow as the words reach inside
open paths, heal those open wounds
forming new....baby soft skins.
Poets are mostly misinterpreted....misunderstood,
by the world at large, and even..
by themselves...as the words flow
endlessly......like lava pours
from the depths of the earth,
in its’ struggle to be free.
The words of a poet can strip the truth
bare.....like a bird plucked of its' feather,s
naked...exposed to the world,
or they can embellish, creating a romantic
fantasy to dive into....letting imaginations
run wildly.