Harbingers of Fall

The signs of the changing season come on slowly and subtly in late August, but as soon as September comes, the tempo picks up a bit.  There is now a decidedly reddish cast on a few maples, and occasionally a morning cool that sends me digging in the closet for jeans that have been sitting unused for months…. 

In Boston, however, the change of season is dramatic as 350,000-college students return.  And nowhere is there presence more obvious that at Target on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.  With a spectacular lack of good planning on my part, I found myself at the Watertown Target at 5:00pm as busloads, and I really do mean busloads, of college freshman were being disgorged to purchase dorm room supplies.  Like locusts, they swarmed through the home furnishing/dorm room section until the shelves were bare. 

My daughter, the marketing guru, told me that the Somerville Target does more business on Labor Day weekend than during the Christmas holiday season.  It is one thing to read the annual spate of articles in the Boston Globe about the return of the students, and quite another to get up close and personal to this massive economic engine on a buying frenzy.

It was good to return to the boonies where autumn continues to make its presence felt in smaller steps.  Just yesterday morning I saw the first blush of autumn orange in the salt marsh grass. 

Reboot

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For the first time in way too long, I was out
in the early morning light, watching the
perfect reflections of herons fishing in the
salt marsh and the dancing eddies of the
incoming tide.  After so much time spent this summer with Fabulous Fins, all sold on the Art Drive auction, it is a relief to be viewing real jumping fish from afar and not on my computer screen. 

Now, after a wonderfully successful Art drive, I am ready to reorganize and to begin thinking about the next images and adventures.  Harbingers of the coming autumn are beginning to appear.

And swirling around in the place of unconscious creativity are shiny moving fish with hummingbird cohorts….hmmmmm

 

A Game of "Chicken" with a heron....

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This afternoon, north of Tacoma, out in the tidal flats of Commencement Bay, this Great Blue Heron and I played a game of "chicken."  As I carefully stepped across bright green, very slippery seaweed and broken mussel shells, the heron preened and groomed himself.  When I got within 25 feet, he stopped abruptly and went stock still, not moving a feather.  My shutter turned to quiet mode, I snapped away while he remained in his pose. 

I wondered if he didn't feel threatened because of the little stream between us, or if he was just confident knowing he could fly away.  Or was it like a dog who hides his head under the couch, thinking that if he can't see you, you can't see him.  I'll never know the answer to these questions, but for twenty minutes he didn't move and I practiced the patient zen of a photographer, just waiting for the "taking flight shot with Olympic Range in the background." 

Then some other beachwalkers came along the bird's side of the stream and the game was over.  Off he went.  And no I didn't get that flight shot, but someday......

 

Ferris Wheel Sunset

This photo was taken from the atop the new ferris wheel on the Seattle waterfront. It was a fun ride
with a great view of both the Seattle skyline and the Olympic peninsula.  But the designersof this new waterfront attraction are taking no chances - a good idea given the typical Seattle weather - the seats
are enclosed like a gondola with both heating and air-conditioning... pretty swank.....

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.