Storm Sky

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This afternoon, I went to Fall River to visit a friend and it was a treacherous trip. The sky was filled with spectacular fast moving clouds that danced around the sun creating gorgeous shades of light and dark.  The danger was not the promise of rain, but my intent focus on the sky and not the road.  It's a good thing I was moving slowly on country roads. 

When it was time to return home, the clouds were delivering their payload with gusty winds and hail sized rain. I got drenched getting to my car and everyone on the highway was crawling through this waterfall at 35 miles an hour. While watching the road intently, my inner tv screen was seeing my hanging plants that had barely survived the recent heat wave, being beaten to a pulp.  But  I arrived back to Dartmouth to dry streets and a sky full of storm warnings. So I grabbed by camera and caught this view of the setting sun over the harbor.

 

Charley's Angel

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My blog postings have been sparse lately because I have spent the spring immersed in the world of 3D yellowfin tuna.  For the past three years artists from Dartmouth and Westport have created 4-foot long fish that are used to promote the Art Drive, an open studio tour through the coastal villages of Dartmouth and Westport.  The fish are auctioned off on eBay to support the event and the Lloyd Center for the Environment.

As a participating artist this year, I spent a long time thinking about what to do with my yellowfin tuna.  In Mexico, reflected light patterns on tin angels made me think of shiny fish scales and that started me off on an idea that was at the time way beyond my skill level and pay grade. But a lot of time playing with photoshop and learning how to use my graphics tablet got me to a pretty good place when my daughter raised the bar saying,

“ Oh Mom – you have to make this 3D.  It will be so much more dynamic.” 

Easy for her to say!  She is a talented artist who can easily move in three planes.  For me, adding a third dimension was as challenging as one of those yoga poses that the teacher does so easily.  While she twists and turns all forty six different muscle groups, I can’t even get a message from my brain to my neck, much less arms, shoulder, abdomen, legs……..  But perseverance pays off.    After many trips to AC Moore and Ace Hardware trying out different schemes and learning more about adhesives than I ever wanted to know, it did come together. So here is “Charley’s Angel” made of photographs on colored xeroxes mounted on flexible foam, over an oatmeal box.....

 

The angels that started this whole idea.


  

My own little yellow fin angel stands only 12” tall.


To create the colors for the fins and scales I used sunshine and a bright
Mexican tablecloth and a lovely turquoise shirt.

Floating Gardens of New Beige.....

For the last several weeks I have been immersed in the world of yellowfin tuna, artistic tunas, that is.  Hours and hours spent with the 42 fish for this year's Art Drive.  This morning I needed to be a bit closer to the world of real fish, so I took a stroll along the New Bedford waterfront.  Monday is a busy day as boats get ready to journey out. 

Dodging around rigging trucks and watching welder's sparks fly, I saw a most unexpected sight....tomato plants.  On the deck of Nell, a small barge piloted by Ray were four tomato and one cucumber plant.  Every year he plants his crops in five gallon buckets and lashes them safely aboard. 

"I got all this sun all day... Why not?" he says with the smile.

Ray may earn his keep on the sea, but he is a born gardener.....

Nick Nolte....

Leaving Barney's Joy at dusk, we had to wait for this gentleman to decide to move.  Which he did...eventually. We named him Nick, because he has that dissipated look like Nick Nolte....

This busy guy watched and followed us for awhile.

Workshop Wonder

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Learning is a process of ups and downs that is littered with plateaus.

Three days of chasing the light on Cape Cod beaches and tidal flats has pushed me off of a plateau to a new way of seeing.  Before attending Ron Wilson’s Landscape photography workshop, I was being driven nuts by a picture that I knew was sitting in the empty lot at the top of my street, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work in the two dimensions of the photo.  Now I know the answer….  and so much more. 

It will take practice to put into use what I learned, but how wonderful to have this new visual language.  If only all of my education had been this satisfying….

Nauset Beach an hour before sunrise

 


Zig zagging in the tidal marsh

 

 


Copper glinting tidal swirls