Day after day of glorious autumn weather has me out before sunrise
watching the complex interplay of light, mist and tides. Some days I come home with no
pictures, but always with a sense peace. This gift of time to observe, listen, and just "be" in the day's awakening lightens my heart and makes hope possible.
A week of September glory greeted us upon our return to the Southcoast. Almost every morning I have been up early watching the sunrise at favorite spots. The image below of the Slocum River bordered by ragweed and goldenrod made me think of color theory. The sky and the flowers were perfect complementary primary colors -- all that was missing was the red. It was there alright, just not in the photograph. It was my red, runny nose as I pushed the shutter button in between sneezes.
From the back yard of our house we can watch and hear the cows in the field next door. As the fast moving clouds and brisk wind added drama to this peaceful view of zigzagging lines, I tried to capture the feel in between the raindrops. When I looked at my images on the computer I found muted tones of blue, greys and golden wheat pleasing, but I think this sepia version captures the timeless feel of the scene.
Driving across the bridge from Souris to West Souris are a series of signs that gave me pause.
"Provincial Police? I want to report a drunk driver on Route 2."
"Hellloooo, ish thish the Provincial Po-lice? (hic!) I wanna report (hic!) a guy ushing a cell phone."
The Greenwich Dune hike runs along Saint Peter's Bay, through woodland groves and then across the marsh and over a pond on a gracefully arching boardwalk to the dunes. A spectacular clear and breezy day for a walk through a world of blue, green and gold to the red sand.
Looking like they had come from Hogwarts, magic clouds filled the skies.
It is a gray and rainy day in PEI. The project of photographing the wonderfully colored metallic roofs in PEI won't be happening today. I left the rain cover for my camera at home....So what is a girl to do? There is reading, a binge of couch potato Netflix watching, or there are real live PEI spuds to build activities around.
Off I went to the Coop hoping to be able to buy just 2 potatoes to make a small soup, but this was the smallest bag and it was $1.79. Armed with an onion, a few sausages, the chard purchased at a farm stand yesterday, and the nearly dead carrots that had been left in the fridge, soup-making began in earnest. But that didn't take very long, even with making roasted parsnips for a snack.
After I had washed a few potatoes, the bottom of the sink looked like a silty red river bottom. I thought of taking a photo but why use a silty sink when you can set up your tripod and do a full-blown photo shoot?. How often does the lowly spud get its picture taken? My first adventure in food photography...May I present The Clean and the Dirty: Spuds from the Hood,
This is the view from the front yard of the house in Souris West, Prince Edward Island, where my dad, late in life, found time to sit still... time to enjoy the serenity of this landscape of gentle farms rolling down to the sea. That he loved the quiet peace of this place was a surprise to everyone, even him.
Walking on the sandy streets along the beach I have been pondering the joys and surprises that come unexpectedly later in life. I always thought that the love of the outdoors that I share with my brothers was something generational and had no connection to our parents. Appreciation for nature and outdoor activity simply weren’t an important part of our family life growing up. The pleasures of camping and hiking eluded my parents and, as for the white water rafting and rock climbing we loved, the less said the better. Yet in the autumn of life, my Dad came to appreciate the quiet grace of this landscape and I became an artist. I guess we are all a family of late bloomers.
St. Stephen's, New Brunswick on the Canadian side of the St. Croix river, is a small town that has seen better days but was the perfect stopping place for the night. At the recommendation of our friendly hotel clerk we walked down to Carman's Diner. Like diners all over, it has placements with little advertising squares from local companies. This ad really caught my attention: Chicken bones, candy, immigration and guns all together...Really.....
A Canadian chicken bone
Well, I had to see this and fortunately the store was open when I went for my early morning walk. It turns out Chicken Bones have nothing to do with fowl and everything to do with sugar. This local confection is made largely by hand in Canada's oldest candy factory, Ganong's, here in St. Stephen's. A chocolate and cinnamon filling is rolled and kneaded by hand into a pink sugar coating that is cut and baked. The shopkeeper in Stuarts explained that standards for chicken bones are quite exacting, and any that don't measure up are sold as seconds. "They are just as tasty, just not as pretty," he said with a smile.
And I can't close without showing you the best looking trashcan couple ever. They live outside Carman's Diner.
YELP can help you find a coffee shop, but you never know what else that might lead to. From the bookseller next to the coffee shop we learned a heartening story of a city that even in hard times supports its library. Bangor's original library was built in 1913 with a copper roof made to last 100 years. But after a century no amount of band aid solutions could fix the leaks that threatened the collection and caused water to cascade down the main inner stairway after an October storm.
For $40,000 the residents of Bangor, Maine could have bought a new roof for their library. But did these thrifty Mainers take the easy way out? Did they fall prey to Grover Norquist thinking? No! By an 87% margin they voted in June to approve a $3 million dollar bond to do the job right: to replace the original copper roof and do major structural repairs that will last another 100 years. The voters in Bangor know that a cheap solution that requires frequent maintenance and replacement is no bargain and they are not afraid to support their community institutions. If only the rest of our voters, legislators, and businesses would do the same!
Just down the street from the library is the Maine Museum of Art. The Young Curators Lightscapes was very interesting. A group of high school students, young curators, had a unique opportunity to see the inner workings of a museum and all that goes into creating an exhibit.. These young curators worked with the museum staff over the course of a year, selected the theme and the pieces from museum's permanent collection and hung the show. The works were varied, from a George Inness of the Hudson River School to modern pieces by Anna Hostvedt. I don't know if they were also the ones responsible for the wall just outside the museum covered for 10 feet with this scrawl.
It is August 25th in a summer that feels like it has just begun, yet the signs of the season's changing are here - the roadside wall of green is punctuated with small dots of yellow and occasionally a bit of red. Last night's fall-like coolness made for a glorious dawn of gently wafting river fog and grass tips set aglow by the rising sun.
Most of my elementary school trips were to either the Whaling Museum or Plimoth Plantation, both of which were pretty boring as kid. Half a century later, with no teacher's or lesson plans, it is pretty fun to get up early and watch the Mayflower sail through New Bedford's Harbor and the Hurricane Dike and its way back to Plymouth.
On this quiet Monday morning, I sit on my deck, watching hummingbirds, and thinking about my weekend spent at an art show in the old New England summer enclave Nonquitt. Over the three day of this event I saw friends I hadn’t seen for many years, played several rounds of “you look so familiar” and met many new folks. None of that was unusual.
The totally unexpected gift of the weekend was having children as customers. Two young girls, unrelated as far as I could tell, each picked out the same image of purple pink petals. They were immediate and unwavering about their selection and very much the decision makers in the transaction, knowing exactly where my image would live in their personal space. I had been prepared with my lines and stories for adults, but never before considered that children as young as seven would be art buyers. What a treat!
My photographs are all stories, tales of a world stopped for the fractional moment of a shutter click. They speak of mood, form, feeling, tone and color, but that is not all. Images are like book covers, an invitation to journey into another world, a journey that often leads to yet more words and images. I love sharing that journey and thanks to my iphone I was able to show each of these girls the backstory of their chosen image -- of the Mexican celebration of Carnaval and the women who make these beautiful paper flowers.
Was it the journalist in me, the teacher, or a latent grandparent need that took such great pleasure in watching their faces as they saw the story on my iphone? I don’t know the answer to the question, but I do know it was the most unexpected delight of the weekend and has set my mind wondering about education, class, privilege and the magic of art.
A friend of mine from Mexico sent me an email the other day - no posts since June 9th- unacceptable !! Guilty as charged. I have been consumed with fishy business. My garage is no longer a place for cars and garden equipment but is rather an aquarium full of 4-foot fanciful and very creative fish - this year's Art Drive School of Classic Cod. Happily, the fish are now all photographed, found their way onto the poster and soon will go to their display locations in Dartmouth, Westport, and New Bedford. For more details about their whereabouts and the auction where you can buy a Classic Cod check out www.the-Art-drive.com or go here and buy your very own!
In addition to all the fish stuff, I have been taking a class in Advanced Photoshop- Speed Painting. The work I did on Entangled made me want to learn more about using the brushes in Photoshop so when I saw this class advertised at RISD I thought it might be a place to start. I emailed the instructor and he assured me that it would, and the fact that I am not already a painter wouldn't be a problem. So with some trepidation, I took the plunge. Perhaps free fall off the 10 meter diving board is better description. For starters, I am at least 30 years older than everyone else in the class and the only person without a solid background in painting. But as promised, I am learning a huge amount and loving the challenge. In a few short weeks I am supposed create a whole world complete with different weather and lighting. ...whew.... Given the oceanic theme of my life these days, it is no surprise that my practice exercises on clean rendering, creating custom brushes from inkblots and masking techniques all have an underwater look.
Crabby inkblot babies
The high winds that have brought Alberta floods and lots of rain here off the coast, have also blown Portuguese Men of War ashore. Yesterday I found three of them at Cherry & Webb beach. To have them here so early in the summer is yet another sign of climate change. They are miserable to come in contact with, but they sure make for interesting looking beach blobs....