Happy New Year

Here's a man I met over the holiday in New Orleans. He captures the spirit of ordinary daily celebration. And isn't he just so debonair? I love the way he holds the nub of his cigar.

Wishing all a happy and fun new year.

When I first thought about this new year, I became all heavy, thinking of discipline and accomplishment and output. But today I turned that crap around and thought about playfulness. What I really want in 2011 is a stronger sense of play. Cheers to that.

Future Unclear

The world of writing is getting harder to read. Let's just say the editors that be are moving things around and nothing looks too clear staring out into the year 2011.

But the freelancer's life is always about starting and stopping. Thank goodness I've been at this long enough to see the cyclical nature of work, assignments, and journeys marked by beginnings and endings.

Still, it's a little scary and a bit lonely working for yourself.

Warming Up

Looking through a series of shots from last summer, I came across this one. It made me feel warm on this icy, cold, shut down winter day.

Your Voice Reaches Me Always

It's probably too simple a statement really, but coming up with a name for this new series of work I'm building and developing is like reading a dream. Kinda hard to get the meaning.

What's apparent so far is mood, fragility, a layered skin of light, the suggestion of pattern, and often a great head of hair.

I'm thinking a unifying title could be Your voice reaches me always. It could be just the ticket into the show. Maybe it's the English major in me, but I need a theme, a way to see, select, and edit.

But, then again, the title may be pretentious, girly sounding faux-ocity, fo sho, fo sho.

Oh well, for the moment, let's just agree this new title seems better than its earlier iteration, There Are Limits.

Dreaming on a December Afternoon

Got some excellent news this week. One of my new pieces was accepted in a gallery show juried by none other than one of my abiding inspirations, Keith Carter. He's a dreamer who captures the ordinary in extraordinary ways. The show will be up in January at Eastern Carolina University's Gray Gallery and Keith Carter will give a lecture on the 13th. Hope to make that.

This photograph is one I made yesterday working with a new model and friend. We shared a sense of play and ease, and I love the way this fabric in front of her looks like snow. Low tech magic.

Sitting Down

The security guard at the museum stopped me before I could really get this shot, but I still like it and see the lines and the promise of two people seated in the chairs.

It's my birthday and I can't really say what will happen in the newness of the new age, but I am hopeful I move from fret to freedom. I just want to make more and more things and not waste so much time worrying about whether it's good or will go anywhere or will sell or land and stick.

Make art.

Make it up.

Make a connection.

Make something of this precious experience of being alive and awake and able to make things.

Mayberry on Acid

Mothers teach many daughters how to shop. It's often a tradition handed down.

The mother of this girl outfitted her daughter with a cloth grocery bag to go along with her pink jacket and matching boots.

It's a look that perfectly fit the scene at Good Earth, a sweet little grocery store in Fairfax, California, a town referred to as Mayberry on Acid.

Happy with Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, sending these echoing kisses to one and all.

Inside Outside Self 2010

Okay, so here's what friendship looks like.

A girl named Jada and her friend named Willow sitting down on a rock in the sunshine, animals and accessories evenly divided.

It's a rich photograph, lots of layers and choreography. I didn't take it. Someone in their fourth grade class did. All I did was teach a few classes about gesture, mood, point of view, setting, and the fractions and geometry of composition.

Fourth graders are sponges for photography. Show them images, talk about the work, practice taking pictures, and, bam, two days latter, here you go - two girls being friends.

I love these girls. They took the working concept of our class - portraits portray something important about a person - and ran with it. Their friendly ease is right there - inside the frame, it's a quiet, private thing all their own.

Making Waves

One day, long ago, I sat watching the waves recede and return. I slowed way the f down. I looked, standing still, seeing once again that nature is the first artist.

This image is from Vancouver where I plan to live one day, and it may be sooner rather than later if the radical right wing and tea leaf types take over. In scary times, it's comforting to possess a solid exit plan. Vancouver. You can find me there.

Scraps of Paper

Found this image while looking through some old files. It's like a scrap of paper that once you pick it up, contains something worth reading.

I'm not sure if the ribs are too much. Is her thinness a distraction? Or just a part of being human, flesh and bones?

Imitating is FUN

There's a lot of surrealism swirling in combination lately. Just happening in that surreal way sort of way. It's a head-nodding time, for sure. (More about that later.)

Here's a photograph I directly copied from the French woman with a gender-bending name: Claude Cahun. I came near to her vision here. Studying the masters is a stretch I like to take from time to time. It makes you understand a new way to set things up and play around with the elements.

All right, now I am going to directly address you, kind reader.

I've been wanting to say hello to you, give all y'all a shout out, bang on your front door a little.

Of course, I don't know who you are, and try not to think about it, but you're here a little and so am I. Seems like a cool kind of sharing to me.

Okay, and finally, I want to thank Rachel and Jodi for inspiring this photograph.

Making Statements

Looking over massive quantities of work, I realize themes. Like this one: emptied out spaces. The here and gone-ness of it fascinates me. The crumbling nature of permanence and time.

All those great English lit ideas are present in this momentary image that seems to contain at least two worlds, the past as well as the partial present. I find this sort of image wherever I go
whether it's downtown Winston-Salem or rural Vermont. I'm compiling a series of these photographs and feel as if there' a secret inside each image. Something whispered.

Right now I'm working on an artist statement for grant applications and such. I'm thinking the phrase The Partial Present could be a series title to wrap my narrative around. So could Emptied Out.

I took this photograph the morning of demolition. I arrived at eight o'clock and by 10:30 not one single brick or panel from the dining room mural stood vertically.

Photography involves reactions. Snap-second reactions. It helps me to not think too much.

Sugar High

Got a little crazy with the pill-sized M & Ms yesterday. I kept downing the little circles of colored chocolates. Went through an entire package of small packages, the kind passed out to kids in costumes standing at the front door. Those packages were just so cute, so adorably cute and innocent.

I used to eat too much sugar on purpose in college. Rows of Oreos, dozens of donut holes. Ick. Made my head addled, fuzzy, everything a bit distant. It was weird reentering that zone where I dug in and didn't even try to stop myself.

Order in the Court

The myth of the ordered life is so appealing when it's commercially packaged well. I have a thing for kitchen stores and office supply shops, art ones too. I love how great things can look lined up and new.

This shot is from a cozy independent kitchen store I visited this summer in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I don't use these one cup no-fuss gizmos but their mini coffee containers caught my eye.

I am drawn to the way space lines up, which makes a certain sense. It's a photographer's obsession - lining up space. Think Margaret Bourke-White. Paul Strand with his dinnerware. Sebastiao Salgado. The list goes on.

I think I'm attracted to simple order because my head is a dense forest - an intriguing place but, damn, a hell of a mess.

Above Ground

You know the expression, keeping your head just above water?
It means to live slightly above chaos that's the size of an ocean
I wonder, what would it mean to say, I'm just keeping my feet above ground?

Vintage Chic

The southern landscape is rich real estate. Forget the lists of richest places to live. Forbes doesn't really determine value, it just thinks it does.

This house is on a dirt road in Virginia. There are just so many priceless elements - like the nail that's hooked onto the falling gutter. It's as long as a finger.

Testing, Testing, One Two Three

Got a little tutoring help today on the computer and wondered if this image has a stronger presence than the earlier one?

Chocolate Celebration

The highlight of this week was celebrating my friend pictured here. She just turned two and had a delicious piece of chocolate cake at her party.

One of the favorite things we like to do together is growl. Try it. It will make you feel good.

Lifting Off

Came across this the other day. Love it. Still love it.

The light is pure crazy magic. The image of this photograph came to me late one afternoon when I went into the parking garage to get my car. The light fell into each metal rectangle like glass itself.

I'm writing notes these days for a possible piece that begins in high school. This portrait takes me back there. Like the girl in this shot, I had a certain tomboy practicality early on - it's a tool that continues to serve me well to this very day.

Unclear Vision

Monday morning and I just can't see what's next. Obsessing a little about that right now, and also aware that it doesn't matter much. My good friend is at this moment in surgery. It's a serious situation and what my art means or doesn't mean seems like selfish rot.

This image is about seeing beauty, feeling the wind, taking time, and, who knows, maybe even taking flight.

Editorial?

Third parties witness other peoples' intimacy. What's going on is viewed from outside the direct action.

For me, making photographs is an intimate relationship. I make an image and then the image makes me. We work together from interrelated perspectives. We speak an unspoken language. We share history. And, lest this turn too lofty, we screw up.

My blathering is all a preamble to yesterday's portfolio review with artist/juror, Colin Quashie. A third party came into play. It felt very odd to hear a different voice speaking.

Quashie said more than once, Your work is very editorial.

Editorial? I asked more than once.

Yes, he said, look up Getty Images.

I am still scratching my head.

Fighting the Enemy

There's this nagging thought that sticks with me. What does it mean? A photograph needs to contain meaning. I aim for that, believe in it even.

And, yet, the truth is I don't always understand the meaning. It's not explicit.

This new image seems to be simply about beauty and light. Is that enough? I didn't really think so until last night when I heard a great talk by the poetry scholar Ed Wilson. He quoted Yeats, who said that time is the enemy of beauty.

So there it was - an answer. I am fighting the enemy by capturing beauty.

Monday Morning Focus

Look at her eye, her profile, her one foot in front of the other approach.

That's what I'm aiming for this morning as I look at the week. Working for myself, it's not always clear how to call myself to attention in this way.

But I'm trying here. I really really am.

Yippee

It's Friday and beautiful outside and I just made a great decision I'd been going back and forth about for way too long. This image speaks to the joy of letting go. Decision can mean freedom.

Even though it may look like I was imitating that iconic Marilyn Monroe photograph here, I wasn't. The wind is strong up on Nod Hill. When a gush of wind came up, we both reacted.

The fingers in the shadow thrill me beyond what is sensible.

A Little Rusty

Got home from nirvana and had to jump right in and write a few things. Wow, I am either really rusty and out of practice or writing just takes a lot longer than I remember.

I always enjoyed what Eudora Welty said about writing, "I don't like writing, but I do like having written."

Heading In

This is me. This is me with four legs and a white tail. This is me bolting from the perfectly fine, nicely mowed lawn in favor of the forest.

I am back home in the land of lawns and political lawn signs. Kind of flat and uninviting stuff compared to the wild.

Returning from long trips away always puts me in the mind frame for comparisons. Here vs. there. It's an inevitable part of the adjustment, the return.

Climbing Back

Stairs are an obvious symbol of transition. These well-worn stairs from one of the studios at Weir's farm suggest the way I'm looking at my life right now, post-residency. I see where I need to go, but haven't started yet. Today I'm pushing myself to begin in earnest.

Returning home.

It's a phrase with lots of reverberation.

Leaving Alden Pond

This morning in the beautiful warm sunshine, I walked slowly to the pond to say goodbye. Another thing to love about J. Alden Weir is that the man built this pond when he sold a painting. More later. Have miles to go today. Thanks to all the people and the rocks and the trees and the creatures that made this such a rich experience.

Take Five

This is a three and a half year old I met at the Brubeck Brothers concert yesterday afternoon. The concert was a fundraiser for Weir Farm Art Center and the crowds came rolling in with picnics and chairs.

Anaia is a sweetie pie for sure, and, get this - she's the great granddaughter of Dave Brubeck, who lives in Wilton and had lots of kids - five sons, one daughter - many of whom play jazz like their dad.

I love her matter of factness and that bow at the center of her dress.

Wired Landscape

Okay, so this was a fun Friday afternoon. I was allowed into the mesmerizing old wire factory in the town of Georgetown. A massive place. Can't imagine how many souls once worked here. Hundreds if not more.

I loved the urban/industrial scene....wreckage and smashed windows and brick containing nothing but air and rusted debris. The forest is beautiful, but so is this landscape of a time past.

This image is a view through a hole in a window, which is a subject I could build an entire show around.

Dreamy

This patch of beauty hid like a secret by a gravel driveway. I discovered it during an afternoon visit to a nearby garden I'd had my eye on since arriving two weeks ago. I was surprised by how many magnificent grasses were planted here and there.

The Neighborhood

This is a beautiful neighborhood. No doubt about that.

Tonight I enjoyed an easy dinner with a lovely woman I met when she was out walking and asked if I wanted to join her. She knows herons well and when she said how much she liked this image my spirit soared.

Thank you Adair. You lift me.

Stardella

Another reason to love J. Alden Weir - he nailed metal stars like this one to the ceiling of his studio.I love the show of time here, the star and the shadow of the star. Time present and time past moving in tandem.

The other day chatting with two National Park Service rangers here, Allison and Cassie, we all confessed to having a crush on J. Alden Weir. They both became a little wowed when I mentioned that upstairs in my cottage there's a life-sized photograph of Alden standing on the land, palette and paintbrush in hand.

"It's a nerdy historical figure kind of crush," Cassie laughed, "but we can't help it."

No, no we can't.

Discovery

This is the beginning a series that's exciting. More to be unveiled, but I am exhausted in the best way possible. So much creativity and newness and excitement. I woke up at 4 this morning just thinking and thinking about working with the woman suggested here.

After the Rain

This morning I was sitting at the desk, drinking coffee, writing a few things down. I paused. I looked out the window and realized I was doing the exact wrong thing. It was time to get out the door and into the morning light that shimmered with the heavy rains that fell overnight.

Within 30 seconds, I stripped off the nightgown, grabbed the nearest clothes, snatched my camera, and ran like I was trying to catch a train about to leave the station.

That little tree in the foreground is part of what I'm playing with right now. I tend to be a little too neat and fussy, and the forest, let's face it, is neither and is helping me to have fun getting a little messy.

Life is Still

Okay, I finally found some models up in these here hills. They were good collaborators and seem to get along well. Like a family on vacation.

Formality

There is still some spring in the fall up here in the elegant quarters of lower New England.

Today was bright and in the low 70s and I swam outdoors in a 50 meter pool. A heated pool. I thought about aiming for a mile, but then I just didn't want to count laps. I hate keeping track of numbers when there's sky and water, movement and breath.

The lifeguard said the bubble goes up over the pool Saturday.

For Real

This is a funny little moment that looks like Disney. Did I ever say I wanted to "shoot" wildlife?
Nope, but that's happening here and there. Fur real.

A Tone of Memory

I've been reading interviews with one of my favorite photographers, Sarah Moon. She's incredible and inventive and darkly romantic.

When asked about her images in color and black and white, she said something I really like:

"I feel that black and white has the tonality of introspection...it's imprecise because it's more about feeling than image. It's probably a tone of memory. Color is a more open language."

Nod Hill Road

Walking down the street where I now live temporarily, Nod Hill Road, I spotted a rare dash of color in the sea of green and brown. I played with the depth of field, a la Keith Carter, and felt pretty happy with the dangle and the blur.

I will post the black and white version, which I think I'm liking more, though that circle of cherry red is kind of irresistible.

Inspiring Aldens

There is so much to say. To begin with, I consider my greatgrandmother, Ada Alden, to be an abiding inspiration. My creed is wonder is just a thumbnail of that great Ada wisdom.

Now there's another Alden in my life. The man for whom my artist in residency is named, J. Alden Weir. Weir was an academic American painter who traveled to France for five years of study. While there, he saw a radical show by the then-unnamed group later known far and wide as the Impressionists. He hated them. In fact, he walked out of their show within fifteen minutes.

The work was too loose. Too undisciplined. Slightly primitive.

Well, jump cut forward by about ten years. Weir returns to New England, barters for this big plot of land in Wilton, Connecticut, and begins painting outdoors in the forests and hills that make up his parcel of paradise. Voila, he discovers impressionism - American style.

Looking at this pond today, it's easy to see how such a conversion occurred.

Disorientation

Exploring the forest and wild of Weir Farm is disorienting. There's the National Park Service area, the Ridgefield open land, and the Weir pasture - to name three entities that make up this vast expanse of unspoiled property.

I am set up in the newly created studio (I am only the 4th artist to use it) and have all the machines humming. Next, I will begin. This image suggests movement. I await mine with curiosity.

Into the Wild

I'm heading into the wildness soon. It may not look like this Virginia forest where I spent a lovely part of the Labor Day weekend, but it will be a tangle of possibilities, a web of light and dark.

This image reminds me of a funny little thing that happened this summer when I showed my sister-in-law tons of new work. There was a long period of silent looking. The portfolio book was closed. Finally she said, "So, you don't shoot trees anymore?"

Every time I remember that line, it makes me laugh. These trees are for my beloved Pam.

Mad Discipline

Well, here's a woman to know. Mary Ann Zotto. I had a great conversation with her during a memorable interview a couple of years ago. We are still talking. It is still memorable. Each time.

Here's an excerpt.

DG: What quality do you admire in other artists?
MAZ: Insatiable curiosity.
DG: Which artists do you admire?
MAZ: People like Walter Anderson, who are completely mad and irrevocably disciplined at the same time.

Seeing Red

My mother used that expression, seeing red, to signify her anger, the fume of her rage.

I saw red today, but it was a different kind of experience. Praise, Allah.

I spotted this patch while driving down Marshall Street. It's perfect for a project, a collage, I'm working on that's been way harder than I thought it would be.

Ahhhhhhhhh. That could be the title of this piece too.

One Shot

Watched a movie about the photographer William Eggleston last night. The guy is a laconic madman. Very opposed to talking about art other than to say, it is what it is. What you see is what you get.

But here's the thing about him - he only shoots one image of anything he shoots. That's a rare practice in any era, but in the era of digital, it's unheard of. I work differently. Lots of playing with composition and figuring it out as I go.

This image, taken this morning, is the last zinnia I'll post. It's nearly September.

Buckets of Rain

I've been collaborating on a piece of art for the auction at ABES, the Arts Based Elementary School that rocks the house of education in Winston-Salem. I've been working with a community leader who loves film and knows a bunch about it. Together, we've been photographing objects of the ordinary. Brooms. Boots. Chairs. It's been a lot of fun.

This big-small bucket looks like it came from the Dutch to me, but it's just two pieces of plastic lined up against my office door. I'm totally in love with the brown and the green.

It's Fascinating

Okay, so good things are happening. Someone unrelated to me, an art critic for YES! Weekly, called my work "fascinating." That's a word that cooks. I am eating up the praise. The food metaphors will stop here, but I must confess that I am a whore for encouragement.
Perhaps,on some level, all performers are. Dunno for sure.

Here's an image I rediscovered. It's called, Ideas Without End. Yesterday I revised it. I lopped the image from a rectangle to a panoramic and ironed out the wrinkly, distracting background. Voila.

It's Getting Late

It began with dead roses. I had this image of eyes covered with flowers and the first idea that hit involved using a dozen dead roses I've keep since my anniversary many, many months ago. They are lovely wrinkled flowers in shades of ivory and old Episcopal purple.

When my kids began leaving home, I started letting flowers go through a full cycle, from moistly plump and colorful to crisp shrunken reminders of the past. Over time, I grew to love the end result as much as the beginning. I began to see aging as something beautiful, surprising, totally new. A good thing, too, since everything ages.

In the end, I scrapped the rose idea. I decided to go with these glorious zinnias.They are happy pink and purple faces I found in the shambles of my mid-August garden. Many of the stems stretch over five feet.