Nature's Paintbrushes

When I go into the studios of my painter friends, my eye always goes to those buckets, coffee cans and bins filled with paintbrushes.  I love the many sizes, shapes and colors – the spatters of color on the handles hinting at the magic these brushes have been part of.

As a photographer, my "paintbrushes" are not nearly so sleek, seductive or varied. My tools are a black box of glass and plastic, a carbon fiber tripod that my serious photographer friends laugh at and call “cute” because it is so small, and a virtual paintbox, AKA my MacBook.  But in the last few days of autumn’s glory I have been foraging in my yard collecting branches of vermillion colored Japanese maples,  golden amber giant hosta leaves, miscanthus stocks and more. They are the paintbrushes for my winter portfolio project – a study of form and reflections in Destruction Brook.

 

Paintbrushes gathered from my garden .

Sitting alongside the brook I look a bit like a crazy woman as I make little rock weights and attach fishing line to my garden trove of branches. But it allows me to attempt to secure my leaves and branches in the middle of standing ripples or where the light is best without the current making off with them.  For all the attempts that don't work, there are still a few moments of magic that make it worthwhile.  Here is a sneak peek of what is to come.

Westport Island, Maine

The surface of the water at dawn and dusk is a never ending palette of mystery and delight. 

 

All of that  Maine coast beauty doesn't keep the lost history and sad dignity of broken down sheds and tired-roofs from calling to me.

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Cottonwood Canyon

When my son invited me to visit Salt Lake and see the aspens turning in the mountains I thought "OK- I can give up one weekend of New England's fall glory."  What I didn't expect was to arrive just in time  to see the yellow pop the autumn color against the backdrop of an early snow. I may a head full of gray hair, but that first snow still brings all the giddy excitement I felt as a kid.

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Our Saturday our adventure started at 9,050 feet with the temperature somewhere between 27 and 32 degrees.  Ben and I started climbing up the trail towards Mary's Lake at the end of Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We didn't make it all that far, partly because my lungs are not used to that elevation, but also because the sun was coming up fast and I knew this little cluster of aspens would be soon be dramatically lit, or so I thought.  On my turf I know the patterns and movement of light, but here I didn't realize that a peak I couldn't see meant we would be waiting... and waiting... and waiting.  But all that foot stomping to stay warm was worth it.  These pictures only give you a taste of the magic.

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Autumn Mists

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.

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Ragweed Sky

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.

Timeless Zigzag

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. 

Mixed Messages

Driving across the bridge from Souris to West Souris are a series of signs that gave me pause. 

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"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."

Greenwich Dunes

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.

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Looking like they had come from Hogwarts, magic clouds filled the skies.

Rainy Day Spuds

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. 

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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,

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Rainbow over Souris...

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.

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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. Stephens, New Brunswick

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.....

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A Canadian chicken bone

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. 

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Pit Stop in Bangor

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.

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Autumnal Twinges

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.