Gordon Parks

I was talking to my best friend and lamenting my short story and my quilt being rejected all in the same day. She said, "Don't worry. You can write, you can draw, you can quilt. You're multitalented and versatile." On my end, I laughed and said, "Yeah, that's me--the female Gordon Parks."

Later on that evening I found out that Gordon Parks had just passed away.

Who was he? Photographer. Author. Director. Poet. Composer. He was all of these things. Some know him for making the movie "Shaft", others--"The Learning Tree", which made him the first major African American director in Hollywood. He was also the first African American photographer to work for both Vogue and Life magazines and is considered one of the best photographers of the 20th century.

For me, he was an inspiration. Proof that being able to be successful in many creative disciplines was not only possible, but very real. He was the embodiment of the concept that the creative mind is only limited by oneself...