Tag: Photojournalism

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Quarantine

Kids VT Cover Photography

Look who’s on the cover this month of Kids VT–it’s my daughter, Remy! Its the June magazine issue and you can find it inside of this week’s Seven Days, June 10-17, 2020. We were rollerblading down on the Burlington Bike Path near North Beach and we went through the tunnel. It was almost like an optical illusion and I’m including the original photo below, which I shot with a fisheye lens. I love how Kids VT designed this cover and I especially love the Editor’s Note Managing Editor Alison Novak wrote. Here is only the last portion of it. She fully encapsulated the feeling of this photo. Please read it in its entirety here.

“The cover image of this issue, taken by Cat Cutillo on the bike path in Burlington, resonated so deeply with me because it feels symbolic of our world right now. We are in a bleak place, and there is so much uncertainty about what the future holds. Yet still we roll on, wobbly and uncertain, arms outstretched, with hope for a better tomorrow. That future is only possible if we work to counter those who espouse bigotry and hate. Let’s keep on moving toward the light.” —Alison Novak, Managing Editor Kids VT

Categories
Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Breaking Through, Quarantine Month Three

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Breaking Through, Quarantine Month Three from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

This week marks the end of the school year for my first grader and preschooler. As days have become weeks and weeks have become months, we find ourselves mostly outside. This week, we explored Shelburne Pond and the land near our house. We talked about how we will use our voices to speak up for change and how people around the country and around the world are also speaking up for change.

Everywhere we looked, we saw metaphors in nature. On Saturday, we found a snakeskin in our backyard. We think it belongs to the snake we spotted days earlier slithering around the shrubs. My first grader explained to my preschooler that snakes shed their skin through molting. Online research told us that snakes are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality and healing. They shed their skin so that they can both grow and also get rid of the parasites attached to their old skin.

Near Shelburne Pond, we found a turtle carrying its home on its back. Its shell provides both shelter and protection We were carrying an enormous backpack stuffed with everything we might need for our outing, so we could relate.

We even found a frog at the pond and talked about its life cycle, and its ability to change so masterfully that it becomes unrecognizable from its earlier tadpole self.

We caught up with our bird friend in the backyard, who has made a nice life for itself in our birdhouse, with the freedom to come and go as it pleases. We believe this chickadee is creating a nest to lay eggs.

Nature has a way of turning over, of shedding its skin, of changing. I’ve been thinking about the bird eggs and hatchlings we will likely witness soon. In order for a creature to be born, it must first shatter and dismantle the very thing that has been its source of protection. An egg can’t hatch unless it breaks.

Categories
Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Gardening, Quarantine Week 9

a girl gardening

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Gardening, Quarantine Week 9 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

We’ve buried a lot of things in the backyard recently. From a fish funeral to a time capsule, my kids, Remy and Bo, have gotten used to digging holes over the past two months. The thrilling part is what they find: Worms, snails and more worms.

My 3-year-old, Bo, is a worm connoisseur. He knows every variety they come in, from long ones to fat ones to stubby ones. Worms are his biggest motivation in life.

This weekend, my husband, Ross, was equally elated about worms. Earthworms are a gardener’s gold and a benchmark for healthy soil. They speed up the composting process and help mix soil by eating the bacteria growing on decaying plants and giving off “worm castings” —  a nutrient-filled type of manure that plants love. As we were out in the garden planting seeds and seedlings, Ross took the abundance of worms he found crawling in the dirt as a sign that the growing season would be successful.

“It is going to be a great garden this year,” he said.

In response, my 7-year-old, Remy, started pumping out worm facts.

“Did you know worms have five hearts? They also breathe through their skin and don’t have any eyes. I’ve been studying them,” she told me.

Like many Vermonters, the first thing Ross did when he heard about the quarantine was to start planning for an expanded garden. He had the kids start seedlings with him in the house as part of their homeschooling curriculum. Watching the seeds sprout up from the soil never gets old for them. But perhaps the best part of planting this year was the digging. The creepy crawlers were like buried treasures.

Worms are a great reminder that life is odd and, at the same time, resilient. These creatures without eyes and ears might spend most of their time buried beneath the surface, but they are the first things you see in the aftermath of a rainstorm. And when life tears them in half, instead of dying, they multiply and crawl off in different directions to continue enriching gardens and delighting kids.

Music by Ben Sound:
bensound.com

seedlings growinga girl holds a wormgirl planting a flowerkids look at garden

Categories
Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Time Capsule, Quarantine Day 36

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Time Capsule, Quarantine Day 36 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

We’ve been circling the block a lot, going on neighborhood walks. This seems fitting because time itself has started to feel circular. Our mornings often begin where our nights left off, and sometimes I’m pretty sure I spent the day running in circles around the kids. This weekend we took a shortcut through a tunnel of trees. The lighting was just right and created a perfect shadow reflection of the trees’ long slender branches. We started talking about how trees grow from the inside and track time through growth rings that are permanently logged into their layers. The harder the tree’s winter, the tighter the growth ring.

“It’s a trunk full of history in there,” I told my kids.

When we got home I pointed to the coffee table my father-in-law had made when he was a teenager from the found cross-section of an enormous ponderosa pine tree trunk. We tried to count the rings on it but couldn’t make it past 58.

Having lapped past a full month at home, we started thinking about ways we could record our time. I brought up the idea of creating a quarantine time capsule to dig up in exactly one year that included each of our favorite memories over the past month. We presented the kids with a glass jar — like we were literally trying to preserve the memories like pickles — and told them to collect something for the time capsule.

My 7-year-old, Remy, brought out a toy rabbit in honor of Easter and swapped out the jar for a handmade, wooden treasure chest. My husband, Ross, put in a pencil and sharpener to remember working on art and school assignments with Remy. I put in my birthday candles, having recently added another year to my age. And my 3-year-old, Bo, put in a toy figure of Batman’s sidekick Robin and his socks.

I’m hopeful in a year he’ll be able to tell me why.

Categories
Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES, A Fish Funeral + The Death of a Snowman, Quarantine Day 0

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES, A Fish Funeral + The Death of a Snowman, Quarantine Day 0 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

This is a retrospective: Its Friday the 13th and I’ve picked up my kids from school and brought them to Barnes & Noble to buy a birthday present for a party my daughter is excited for on Sunday. I’m simultaneously texting with my friend who lives in Florida and had visited us just last week. Her son’s school has just been cancelled for at least two weeks.

The reality is sinking in that this thing is fast approaching. I suddenly realize we need to leave the store immediately and go home. It suddenly hits me we will probably be missing the birthday party altogether.

When we get home, we decide its time for the fish funeral. The ground has thawed just enough so we can dig a hole. Shiny is the oldest fish I’ve every known and just this week she has died. We estimate she was 300 in fish years because she was 1.5 in human years. So on Friday the 13th we lay Shiny to her final resting spot in our backyard.

Unfortunately, it is also the death of a snowman in our backyard.  We had built him just a week earlier with our visiting Florida friends. But now with the thaw, he is just a pile of dirty snow with his pipe sticking out.