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.

Sunday in Summer

Sometimes things just go well together. The late afternoon light came through the kitchen curtain and there it was - petals of white in the background and foreground. Sweet. This is not yet a "perfect" print, but it's a lot of fun to play with.

I recently heard Alex Nyerges, the director of The Virginia Museum of Fine Art, talk about the difference between looking and seeing. He said a photographer gets into a more interesting arena when she moves into the seeing. Simple but true.

Happy Anniversary

It's Friday, a little cooler outside, and blueberries are now ripe for the picking. Why not feel a little happy?

Organizing for a massive web update, I found this cheerful moment with my husband. It was our anniversary. We celebrated by renting bikes and riding a trail that ran along the Potomac River in DC.

To ride no- handed at any age is a gas. Remembering to do it is as a "grown up" is one reason why I not only love my husband, but also enjoy him so much.

August Summer

When the calendar moves into August, I become a little melancholic, thinking that summer is ending. This image of fading zinnias, with mold forming on the leaves, seems to match this time of year perfectly. Decay has its beauty, though, especially when surrounded my nature's perfection.