Two for Tuesday: Lean on Me

This father and son twosome has a comfort level I want to breathe into me. I want to inhale that easy closeness, that restful love.

It looks like this pair has taken a break by the side of the road a hundred million times and always ended up this way: father leaning onto the handlebars, son leaning onto his father's warm back with arms, face, belly and smile.

Am I crazy or does it look like the boy is smiling with all parts of his body, even his ears?

I will close by sending love to my son on his birthday. From afar, I celebrate the affection that seems to run through him as naturally as air. Sweet boys are a gift to all.

Behind the Curtain, Part Two

Another version of the curtain shot. There's something Shakespearean in this three part play that moves left to right, from beginning to middle to end.

In the story about my maternity dress, I conclude rather sweetly after an otherwise bawdy, unsentimental remembrance of pregnancy and one Out of Africa regrettable linen smock. The words came as a surprise when I wrote them, but they seemed exactly right when I read them.

My current body is no longer that body, but the dress contains the shape of my life's most surprising and satisfying creations. My children. This pleated maternity dress is a curtain that opened the stage to my blessings, my daughter and my son.

Behind the Curtain, Part One

Okay, so here's a lovely black and white with an appealing wholeness, an organized looseness, a sequence of folding fabrics moving across the horizon in thirds, moving like a woman's pregnancy.

The deep black contrast wrapping her shape feels like a force to me. On this day, at this moment, I'm in love with the portrait. It's neat and natural and full of shapes.

Obsessing

It's obsession time with this series of photographs. I am getting completely lost in deciding which image is the strongest, most compelling, inviting and suggestive and not too literal as to shut down the horizon of imagination. Even that last sentence with its check-listy sound reveals the depths of my excessive expectations.

Could be a good thing.

In a two weeks, a bunch of "experts" will be looking over this collection of photographs. I'm heading to my first portfolio review. Going to let these items from the closet step outside into the world. Going to see what others see. Going to need a strong center.   

Thanks, once again, to the ever delightful and growing Jamie L. for helping with my revision and believing in the project. Her son doesn't yet know how amazing his mom is. He's one lucky guy!

Two for Tuesday: Hitting the Road

 

Thanksgiving is on the mind this week, and I'm feeling mighty grateful. And, yes, I'm grateful for twosomes, duality, pairs, couples, and all things twinned. Spotting this hilarious duo pulled over on the LA highway is a moment that fills my simple little heart with gratitude. 

The helmets, the glasses, the muscles, the opened mouth, the eyes trained on the road in front, that leftward stare.  For looking so serious, this twosome is comedy on wheels. 

Hope you all have a good holiday and remember: keep your eye on the road - you might find something surprising and wondrous.

Loving Damask

I missed this little moment shuffling through the images.  Glad I took a second look.

Here's a quote that's floating through me lately.  It's from novelist Colm Toibin.

"It seems that the essential impulse in working at all is to rehaunt your own house, or to allow what haunts you to have a voice, to chart what is deeply private and etched on the soul, and find form and structure for it."  

Two for Tuesday: Sharing the Road

On this balmy, weirdly, delightfully warm Tuesday in November, I took a long walk with a friend I hadn't seen in quite a while. We caught up, exercised, and took a short detour to stand under the Ginko tree on Runnymeade Road, which exploded with yellow leaves about three days ago. When you look up at that masterpiece of a tree, you see its intricate geometry, the patterning of its branches. It's a little Asian art in North Carolina.

But what am I going on about that for? It's Two for Tuesday. 

I suppose it was walking with a friend that made me select this image today. I spotted these boys, about fifteen or sixteen years old, as they strolled at a leisurely pace at a national park this summer, not a car in sight.  I walked a few paces behind.

My guess -- this twosome was probably unaware that they are wearing a uniform of friendship -- red tee shirt, black athletic shorts, flip flops.

Almost a Nun

Except for one big thing, I could have been a nun in this outfit. The white pastoral collar, Sister Peter Pan.  

Thanks to the game and playful Jamie L. She's just too good sitting in her perch at the top of the yellow slide, anticipating, about to begin down a chute leading to the world of children.

The world of children.

So happy that I slipped into that world.

Cinema

What can I say other than this: I feel a French film coming on.

Two for Tuesday: Looking Together

Like this twosome, I found the graphic sculpture to be a piece of art both absorbing and beautiful. The bubbly glass, the spinning circles, that delicious yellowy copper nucleus with the face inside. There was a lot to see. But then, after a spell, I found this silhouetted couple looking at the art just as intriguing as the work itself.

Several photographers, including North Carolinian John Rosenthal, have created series based on people looking at art in museums. I suppose all art is predicated on the third dimension - the viewer - and to see the art interacting with that force brings it to life in a new way.

Deep in the Woods

Went to the bamboo fields this rainy Friday afternoon to conclude part two of my happy collaboration with Mizz L S maybe A for Ava.

Love this place, always have. Bamboo is a delicate beast, hollow and lean, the material used in making scaffolds, which, if you think about it a second, is a piece of equipment with no room for error.

Anyway, there's a lot to say about this shot, but for now just two things: it's always great to end work on a high note. There's a reason writers are advised to stop their day at the desk in the middle of a strong paragraph.

And, two, when we started photographing, I considered the fallen shoots something to avoid. I thought they made the forest less inviting since they crossed a bit chaotically. But the diagonal cut of this jungle is what invites us directly into the journey.

Okay, I lied.  I have one more thing to say: the dress is a kiss blown into the air.

Plus/Minus

The plus is that I met and married Mark, a man I loved then and love even more richly and completely today.
The minus is that the wedding dress I borrowed from my mother became a veil of conflict draped over me. It took me my surprise then. It still does.

I read in Twyla Tharp's fantastic manual for being an artist, The Creative Habit, the following thought that made me feel a little less nuts for diving so deeply into my past.   "...the real secret of creativity is to go back and remember."

Many thanks to the divine Ms. L. and the subtle and fine R.W.  

Two for Tuesday: Supplies

This pair of mugs stuffed full of paint brushes looks like an inviting twosome. Together they seem to be happy dancers waiting for the music to start. I also like how the windowpane reflects the bristles and how those bristles blend in with the trees in the background.

When no one is looking, I've been known to run an unused paintbrush along my face. This may sound a tad strange to a guy, but for us ladies, it's not unlike applying a little blush along the cheekbones. I don't know about you, but adding that "touch" of color always feels good to me.