Please take off your shoes.

It was the first thing I noticed on the door of her studio. Her philosophy is from another age, when the pace of life was purposeful, and one could be conscious of how light describes the world. She asks me to look at the world by listening to the things that speak to me. She calls herself " a gardner not a teacher-cultivating, nourshing the soil, providing the best climate for growth." This way of life made a profound impression on me. I left her studio that day, but I do not think I ever really put my shoes back on for I still feel the earth beneath my feet. Ruth Bernhard, a photographer, brought me the gift of awareness.