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.