Moving Locations: 2013

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Two for Tuesday: Difficulty Seeing

Going into work Monday morning, preparing to teach elementary school students, I felt a sickening weight inside me. After the massacre in Connecticut I dreaded feeling the terror and sorrow, seeing how the children looked, and walking through the corridors that, no doubt, were similar to the school in Newtown with loads of bright artwork and miniature water fountains.

When I got there, the doors were all locked. A new policy. Now you had to call a number to be let in.

I decided I would begin each class by playing Express Yourself, by Lettuce. It's a spirit lifter if ever there was one. This year it's been my anthem.

I cranked up the iPod and started singing and dancing with the funky music and pretty soon the kids, who had looked frozen and down, started smiling and moving a little. Three teachers came into the room to dance a little too.  We got super silly and the kids watched like, maaan, what is this? Together, we experienced a little fun, possibly even a small moment of transcendence. The song says, whatever you do, do it good.

When we turned back to our projects, we got to work, expressing ourselves and trying to do it good.

Later, on the way home, I finally stopped to make some photographs of a ruined farmhouse I'd been eyeing for four weeks as I rode into Walkertown to begin my day.

There's a visual artist who talks about the salvation of art. I listened to his lecture before the unimaginable slaughter. He said, what do you do when your sister gets cancer - you make good art. What do you do when your man walks out on you, you make good art. What do you do when you lose your job - you make good art.

I felt the redemption in that when I found my way to this dusty, forgotten car. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the difficulty I feel, trying to see how our country is going to pull out of the latest repulsive event.

This twosome, the pair of rusted wipers, seems to have been out of commission for a very long time. Look closely and you'll see paw prints in the dust.

Two for Tuesday: Winter Offering

I've been in an exploring mood lately. I've been sniffing around, scouting locations and making some new grooves in my driving habits.  Looking to see what else is out there reminds me why I love Winston-Salem, my humble city with the hypen, a place I can't quite bring myself to call The Dash.

We have everything here - rural and urban, decaying and new, industrial and suburban, farmer and scientist, pauper and princess, hip hop and classical.  And, we have Lavern and her grandbaby.

I came upon this lovely twosome the other Friday at the intersection of Northwest Boulevard and Liberty. Lavern and her granddaughter were sitting on that plastic white chair, watching the traffic roll by on a beautiful, global warming warm December afternoon. They were waiting for drivers to pull in to buy some of Lavern's trucked in veggies. Once I spotted the colorful pair, I immediately parked in the lot across the street and walked over, wallet and camera in hand.

Look at the beaming rays bouncing off Lavern's smiling and animated face - she's a complete contrast to her dour little grand, who is as serious as Sunday, her lips a thin line of so what, her eyes two frozen dots of no-nonsense.

I bought two bags of greens. At one point Lavern said, Turnips are the bomb. And she was totally right about that. When I cooked those turnips of hers in some olive oil, salt, garlic and herbs, I built the entryway into the land of delicacy.

Rewards

"This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If you just keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious."

~ John Cleese 

Two for Tuesday: A Long Ride

Teaching at Middle Fork Elementary School started off well this week when, on Monday morning, I pulled into the parking lot and spotted this twosome behind the wheel of the car beside mine. I thought I was feeling a little tired until I saw the black circles around their eyes. It was a kind of Tim Burton moment - the intervention of the weird into the mundane.

The Panda pair sort of creeped me out, especially the penetrating gaze coming from the lady in the passenger seat. I walked passed them, staring, thinking of who would decorate their car this way. Then I decided to go back to my car, grab my camera, and take a quick photo of the haunting couple. I wanted proof to go with my story.

Anyway, as I look at this couple now, they make me laugh, thinking this could be me and my husband at the tail end of a very long ride home from an exhausting trip to the relatives; each of us in our own world, not a word left to say.

For Janine

My friend Janine says that Andy Goldsworthy is the artist that matters as she thinks about her life now, now that cancer is nesting in several places on her beautiful 45 year old body. Life can get serious super quickly.

Goldsworthy's sculpture is made with the earth's elements. The material reflects beauty and its eventual destruction, its inevitable demise. Collectors cannot buy a Goldsworthy. They are meant to disappear over time. Some take months, others decades, maybe more.

This week Janine wrote. "We humans have no idea of anything really...best is to live in the moment." 

She also told me how children have it right; they're fearless, able to be thrilled by rain, crickets, grass, eager to splash through a puddle, ready to run through the water, getting wet and loving it.

I made this grass and cinderblock landscape for Janine this afternoon.

Two for Tuesday: The Opposite of Pro Football

Action shots aren't my forte but they are exciting. Feet in mid air. Time snapped into a fraction of a second. Motion stopped cold in its tracks.

This week's twosome features my near and dear, my daughter and son. I took this shot during our traditional Thanksgiving football game, which is loose and messy and full of ridiculous plays like whatever this one is.

I mean, seriously, can you figure out what these two are up to because I can't, and I was there. Marissa is reaching for an unretrievable ball with one hand while Tyler's spinning out in some elevated contortion that leaves me scratching my head, confused about what exactly he's reacting to here. (Footnote: the sunlight on his hair is pretty wonderful, though not a part of most sports commentary, I realize.)

Anyway, at one point during the game, I took a pretty good tumble when I ingloriously tripped over my own two feet. I went splat into the dirt, wrecked my jeans and ended up with a skinned elbow that brought me back to childhood and made me oddly proud.

Defining Memory

Oliver Wendell Holmes defined photography as a mirror with a memory. This photograph speaks to me of that definition - the Thanksgiving table a few hours before we ate looks like the place where the past begins to slide out of the present.

The low light created a shaky focus and an unintended blur that seems to capture where Thanksgiving now resides in me, four days after gathering for a delicious meal. It's a yummy impressionistic memory of a really fun day and evening.

Two for Tuesday: Done Walking

It's good I live in a relatively small city because I've been known to slam on my brakes from time to time, like when I spotted this twosome so neatly stashed by the side of the road, for example. This pair of gorgeous black cowboys boots just stood by the curb looking like they were waiting for something, or someone.

Usually when you spot a shoe on the road it's a singular thing, the lone remnant suggesting debauchery or heartache or violence or all three. But this trim and tidy cinematic pair of Harley Davidson boots emitted a feeling of elegant mystery.

It could be the beginning of a long story, or it could be end of one...

 

Part of a Dream

I've been using the word thrilled a lot lately. It's thrilling. I'm thrilled. What a thrill. Thrill, thrill, thrill. Part of it is how, right now, I don't know how, all these connections are coming together. I've wanted to make a portrait just like this one for a good year and a half or more, and finally all the forces slid into place and, voila, here's that dream of a dream realized.

I will be returning to this idea again...and I am thrilled (there it is again) just thinking about our second shoot. It's going to be fun revising, playing around with the parts, knowing a bit more about the workings and pitfalls.

Many thanks to the supportive and talented collective: Anna, Anne, John, and Lauren. Peace.

Two for Tuesday: WTP

Right now my world is awash with children and that makes me happy and keeps me learning.  This pair of beaming writers and photographers is showing off their completed projects created during my residency at the Arts Based Elementary School.  In their hands are the self-portraits they created as part of the project, My Inside Outside Self.

As we stapled and taped and polished their portraits, we chatted casually, enjoying a rare and well-earned moment of down time together. Jadyn with the rainbow stripes taught me that WTP means where's the party. And Kharin, with the black and white stripes, said possibly the funniest line I'd ever heard while teaching.

Kharin was proud of all her writing, amazed because she'd never written this much before. As a teacher my heart swooned a little. I asked her why she thought she was able to write such a long piece.

"Because I'm really self-centered," she said, smiling, "and that's all we had to write about."

Anyone who wants to come see all 57 dazzling fourth grade artists from ABES is invited to attend their performance and opening reception tomorrow night - Wednesday November 14 - at 7 pm at SECCA in Winston-Salem.  The work is stunning, surprising and rich and, at times, hilarious.

The Final Copy

The final draft takes a lot of concentration and my hat goes off to the fourth grade students at ABES who worked so diligently and with such humming intensity to create their self-portraits. The writing is mind boggling good, funny and profound, inventive and perceptive.

Come see their show at SECCA - it's up on display beginning November 9th. The students will perform Wednesday night, November 14 at 7:00, with a reception to follow.

Two for Tuesday: The Futility of Fall

This twosome is an invented one. I am piecing together a collage that celebrates the futility of fall and the endless dumping of leaves in this leafy world I live in.

It seems odd to place this lighthearted image up on a day when Super Storm Sandy is roiling and ruining so much. Nature always has the upper hand, try as we might to sweep those facts aside.

Make It Last

I don't want this week to end it's been so dreamy and demanding and just as beautiful as can be.  On Monday I made this image come to life thanks to lots of good people and some pink grasses clipped from beside Exit 140, off I-40 West.

Two for Tuesday: Heading Out

The pre-election political intensity coupled with some recent hardships landing at the doorsteps of people I love has made me crave an image of escape. This twosome caught my eye. A pair of strong men standing on the sandy shore, surfboards in hand, seemed like the perfect palliative.

I love this pair scoping out the surf, looking to get lost in the waves and wind and rush of it all. Sign me up. Time to climb into the ocean and paddle out of the here and now.

Two for Tuesday: A Part of the Universe

I dedicate this twosome here to my friend Cathy, who suggested I needed to have breasts featured in my weekly series. Good point. The body is full of pairs, and this one is especially fun and fundamental to the human race.

The cleavage is a detail from a painting by Mickalene Thomas, a feminista who grew up in NYC moved to Portland, OR, came back east and professes to be a precocious late bloomer; she definitely has the drive of a person late to the game. In this massive exhibition, about ten of her enormous works were made in 2011. A mind boggling feat considering each one is the size of North Dakota.

Anyway, I was taken with her massive glittering and textured portraits. Each one celebrated African American women who shared a love of color, big earrings, and serious lipstick.

Mickalene seems up for the big, the grand, the razzle dazzle. The audacity of her exhibition title - Origin of the Universe - matches the strength of her bold work that's fun, gaudy, and almost beautiful in a 1970s kind of way. If you can, go to the Brooklyn Museum and check out a hometown girl.

Anticipation

A lot happened this week and my heart is getting stronger and more open. I'm never sure how I'm going to react to the extreme stories circulating in my little love nest, but I'm thinking the heart is cracking open, ready to do its work.

Two for Tuesday: Off Beat

Bucket drummers always draw me in but what caught my attention with this Chicago twosome was their quiet disconnect. Why is the guy with the dreads looking at this partner this way? An interruption in the beat seems to be just the beginning of a longer conversation between these two musicians parked on their matching black crates.

Two for Tuesday: Field Tripping

I found this pair of empty carts outside the Food Lion on Waughtown Street, the one next to Prodigals Community where I've been teaching this month. This twosome appeared during a mini field trip of sorts. I was walking around the block with my students, seven men who are in recovery from addiction to drugs or alcohol, sometimes both.

It was our second class together when we left campus, heading out to explore the neighborhood, looking for images that reflected one of the twelve steps. As we entered the grocery store parking lot, two drunk men walked by; they were loud, chatting nonsense, staggering a little left and right. That was an interesting moment, all things considered.

And then we spotted this twosome by the side of the store. Look, there's a pair for you, one of the men pointed. There's one.

During our first class, I'd shown a few twosome images. I wanted to share with them the fine art of seeing something fun in this overwhelming world of ours. It wasn't a big part of what we discussed, though. We'd looked at dozens of images, seeing how to use light and metaphor and yourself in photography. So, anyway, I felt pretty excited to discover they were into this twosome concept; they not only got it, they saw it too.

I grabbed one of the point and shoots from a student and began photographing the two empty metal carts. I loved them diagonally parked together against the brick wall and the yummy contrast of the blue plastic against the rust concrete. I also loved the little red plastic on the right back wheel, and the way they seemed to sigh with the end of things, a journey over, a job done. It was a minimalist, slightly despairing landscape a la Robert Adams.

This image seems to be about emptiness, but for me, it contains so much more than that.

Prodigals, Week Three

The weight of wanting and the broken past are sewn into the skin of every discussion with men at the Prodigals community. That's been my experience so far this month. Of course, that's a huge oversimplification, I'm sure, but the powerful images the men are making seem focused on the hope for recovery and the darkness that led them to rehab.

I made this image last week with Warren. He had the idea of where to go and what to do (we'd just studied gesture and mood in portraiture) and all I did frame the shot and get the exposure down.

When Warren likes a photo he calls it tight. When I give him a copy of this next week, I can't help but think he's going say this one's pretty tight. I am struck by its privacy and its beautiful pain.

Two for Tuesday: Spider Friends

Thinking about twosomes for a while now, I'm beginning to grasp how powerful it is to see ourselves in each other. It's a pull of recognition that leads us to pair up, to join in with another, to be together in this complex and too often atomized thing called life. It's an affirmation, and sometimes a relief.

But enough theory. As I teach my students, let's show and not tell.

My friend on the left, Ree, has a beloved Fiat Spider. It's a classic car with a license plate that reads 1981 Spider. It's vintage and glorious and has gone quite a distance with her. Anyway, the day she and I rendezvoused last week, it was sunny and 72 - perfect top down driving weather. She parked her car outside The View where we shopped for my new glasses. At one point, we spotted a very tall man walking around her car.

What was he doing? We watched him, casually, just curious. In one hand he held a helmet and in the other he held a phone he seemed to be using to videotape her car. It struck us as odd, but the car is a beauty, so we also kinda got it. Minutes went by and the man was still there. Finally, he popped into the  store. Anyone here own that Fiat? 

Ree responded, and whatdoyouknow but this fellow had a 1983 Fiat Spider, red, amazing, just like hers. They talked cars for a good five minutes. Discussed parts, gas mileage, and where the next rally for Fiat lovers was going to be held (Virginia in a week). Can you wait twenty minutes, he asked, I'm driving my scooter but can be back here with the car in twenty.

Ree and I grabbed a coffee and waited on the sidewalk. What's twenty minutes when you're in the middle of story with a best friend?

We were just about to give up waiting when what do we see rolling down the street but a brighter version of her little car with a man beaming behind the dash. He parked. The two owners walked around each others' cars, looking, sharing stories, comparing notes, sniffing and wagging.

It turns out his beloved convertible was missing one windshield wiper and a visor, and Ree knew just where he could find them.

Where'd It Go?

My daughter's next door neighbor is where this story begins. He grows elephant ears that are so enormous and grand they appear animated, like characters from the film Jumanji. Sweet girl that she is, my daughter understood how badly I wanted one of these to take home to play with. She knocked on his door, he grabbed his clippers, and, voila.

I filled the bath with about three inches of water and the leaf filled up the tub completely. Its wide edges curled up against the tub like arms. For about two weeks I kept the giant specimen floating in my bathtub.

At one point, my three year old friend, the divine sublime Mizz H, came to visit and and I showed her the elephant leaf with its stalky ridges and spine. We looked and looked. The feeling of awe seemed palpable but not entirely surprising. After all, the leaf appeared continually magical to my jaded eyes so one can only imagine the whooshy whoosh felt by a preschooler.

Anyway, when Mizz H returned to visit weeks later, she walked into the bathroom and leaned over the tub. Where's the leaf? Where'd the leaf go?

Her question reminded me of what my mind had already forgotten. To me the leaf was gone, but to her it lived on in that very spot.

Two for Tuesday: Seeking Harbor

They say that in New York City everything is lived in public. Fights, seduction, friendship and frailty. It's all on display. I suppose there's just too little space inside those overpriced apartments and condos to contain all that happens in life.

I spotted this cozy twosome in Washington Park exhibiting an intimacy that seemed anything but public. The pair hung onto each other, rested into each other, comforted and trusted each other. Not a thing to rush off to, nothing to do other than lean into the deliciousness of being together.

I love the way the man's long thin legs are outstretched in a V of solid welcome, matter of fact and not about to move anywhere. The clasp of his arms around her waist is equally at home.

The woman is looking out over his cradled head, but it seems a safe bet that whatever she spots out there isn't nearly as interesting or lovely as what she feels wrapped inside the embrace she's sharing with the man dressed all in black.

The busy, bustling world is just inches away and yet somehow miles apart from their sweet harbor.

He Got the Job Done

September is a promising month. The light is changing, the mornings are longer, the temp is more reasonable, and plans begin. Being in an academic family, September feels more like new year's than new year's.

It's a beginning. And this past week I began sharing my literacy through photography program with a group of seven, all men, all in various states of recovery from addiction. The men live in residence in Winston-Salem. They're working the steps while also working out in the community - painting, auto mechanics, lawn work, this and that.

I had an amazing time just pulling together the powerpoint for our first meeting. The man pictured above appeared about four frames into my presentation. Take that for bad ass. I saw this man at one of the pull-offs that dot the scenic highway that weaves through Malibu.

I asked the men in the classroom what they noticed, what they saw.

Macho. A tough guy.  Mister cool.

I said I loved his head, his profile and especially that gesture with his jacket.

Yeah, said one of the students. He looks like a man who just got the job done.

Two for Tuesdays: Hidden Message

Not every twosome is an ahh shucks moment. Take this nasty pair of half naked blondes I saw while walking past a department store window. Sexy angry times two. They stopped me cold.

It's hard to say what struck me first - was it those lips held back by the bottom row of teeth that seemed to come with their own growl? Or was it the dastardly long bangs, muscular backs, and f-you fingers barely hidden behind the sequined blazer? Every exaggerated detail works so well together, proving that suggestion more often than not trumps truth.

Some days letting the jacket of good behavior peel back to make way for the hidden impulse to flip the bird and express the sizzling rage of defiance has its appeal.

But you gotta wonder...would anyone actually buy the tee-shirt?

Color Made Me Do It

Meet artist Charles a.k.a. Chas Walker. I wrote about him years ago and got to photograph him in his studio. Back then, I was a hardcore totally committed black and white photographer. Still, I remember how it just about killed me to strip the color from this ode to orange blue white and other drippy surprises.

What a great outfit for the shoot. I loved how he'd selected that look for his portrait. After all, the man loved stripes with an affinity based on exuberant commitment and deep understanding.

See the canvas behind him parked on the wall that ripples with the marks of countless paintings? CW has been creating paintings based on that exact scenario/formula/form/rhythm for years and years and years.

It amazed me then; it still does all these years later.

Two for Tuesdays: For Whom the School Bells Toll

School started yesterday in my small city and a certain buzz seemed detectable. Summer officially ended and fresh starts and new notebooks became the order of the day. I got stuck behind a gaggle of yellow school buses on Northwest Blvd and enjoyed hearing the familiar grinding gears and squealing brakes.

They reminded me of this strong twosome I spotted one school day morning last spring. I saw the mother and daughter pair in a San Francisco neighborhood as they began what looked to be a well-rehearsed routine, the exit from home.

Helmets on, bags stored on the motorcycle's back, they approached a very steep hill, hanging on and looking forward. There's an alertness and anticipation to their going, and I like that most of all. Plus, how cool is it that the mom drives a motorcycle.

Two for Tuesday: Summer's End

I found this rusty twosome by the side of the road recently. Waiting for garbage pick up, they looked like an elderly couple who'd been through a hell of a lot of summers together. Age shows up differently on each person and the same holds true with these two classic chairs - one is worn in the seat and arms, the other took a beating everywhere.

But there's beauty in decay; there's a tactile elegance in the curbside debris. This portrait reminds me of wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that embraces imperfection, impermanence, the transient nature of all things.

Seasons are great teachers that everything comes and then it goes. In North Carolina, the acorns are dropping and the tomato plants look as tuckered out as these chairs.

In 2008 I spent a lot of time thinking about Wabi-sabi (a long story). Here's a quote from the Buddhist architect Kisko Kuro Kawa that I found in a journal from that era. We used to consider things that could live forever to be beautiful. But this way of thinking has been exposed as a lie. True beauty lies in things that die, things that change.  

Watch Out, Sugar

Sometimes the other idea is the idea.

I'd planned to make photographs in some fountains downtown. I'd scoped the place out on a Monday and when we arrived on Tuesday all the fountains were drained. There wasn't a drop of water anywhere. Not really. Just a few sad looking puddles in the concrete pools.

The divine Ms. Joy Thompson and I had some fun anyway. We moved along, brought the ball with us, and had a really good time in the sticky summer evening.

This week she's off to PhD-land and I wish her the very best. The door at Kabassah village is always open:)

Two for Tuesday: Tutu Time

I am so lucky to say that this pair of beauties are really good friends of mine. I've known this twosome since the beginning and I love them absolutely, positively, and completely. They call me Didi and I call them heaven on earth.

The ariel view of sister and brother perched together on two big white pillows suggests the other worldliness of childhood play. Are they resting on a boat or visiting a new country or floating on ice cream? Could be anything. Together, they constantly explore the dreamy yet active world of make believe where animals talk, ballerinas spin, and magic resides. No creative block for this dynamic duo, that's for sure.

Just look at their tutus and the way their heads touch together, merging into a shape as continuous and flowing as their play -- can't you see why I'm head over heels in love?

Sneak Preview

It's been a big week here at Lookout Circle. Lots of news and movement and mood swings. I am frightened and grateful and looking for the lightness of being. Always looking.

Two for Tuesday: Bittersweet

There's a fancy pants word literary types use called synecdoche which means, roughly speaking, summoning something in its entirety by drawing attention to a part. In this image, the twosome's woven legs are the part that shows the entirety of a friendship.

It's not every day you find a person you love so much you can cross your bare leg over theirs, making it look like the most natural move in the world.

I taught these two lovely and intelligent classmates during my art residency this year at Forest Park Elementary. I didn't get parental permissions to share their photos, so I cropped the image down to hide their faces and ended up liking how their body language revealed the trust and comfort these fourth grade girls felt with each other. 

When I asked them how long they'd been best friends, they'd said since kindergarten. 

Their intimate unity took on greater meaning when the girl wearing the dress told me she was moving the next day, leaving school in the middle of the year, about to say goodbye to her buddy who knew her secrets, knew her before she could spell.

She was moving, she wasn't sure where, didn't know why and couldn't remember the name of her new school. In an instant, the love I saw became bittersweet.

Two for Tuesday: Enough

Found these two snuggling by a driveway up on top of a very steep San Francisco street.  Pure loveliness and grace.

Doors, Floors and other Objects

Pulling together mini portfolios for a couple of gallery owners. We're both interested in each other and I hope we start dating soon. For now, the courtship is fun and I'm loving the chance to assemble heaps of work into units, categories, relationships that build and, hopefully, begin creating meaning.

I remember when I created the show, Wait and See. I did more than a dozen portraits and interviews with people who had experienced expectancy, the knowing act of waiting for an anticipated event or result. All these people. So many faces - a scientist, a minister, a dying woman, a pregnant one, and a man wrongly imprisoned for nineteen years.

I finished that body of work and realized that many of my object images and landscapes, the doorknobs and the fog, fit perfectly with the show's theme. On some level, I'd been working on the series long before I gave it a title and declared a direction. David Hockney speaks well about the way work leads the way. Make enough, he says, and you'll see the trail, the signs will be clear, the direction known.

What about the issue of  color vs. black and white in these doors?  The gallerists I'm hoping to date are serious about their black and white.

Two for Tuesday: Ready for the Road

Meet Will and James Mason. Don't the grandpa and grandson make a dashing twosome with their alternating cherry reds and Carolina blues and those seriously glam straw hats. I saw them crossing Coliseum Road, a six lane beast of concrete where everyone drives at high speeds and pushes across town, streaming with purpose, moving east to west and west to east.

It was in the middle of all that mess that I spotted them happily idling. They waited it out on the little island turn lane. Calm and collected. Looking anything but disabled. They wanted to get somewhere, specifically to the Ford dealership, which is where I ran to catch them.

The moment I spotted this twosome, I pulled the car over and parked. The duo had balls, crossing that wooly street, acting like it was a quiet country road, no big whoop.

Don't they look so connected and Hollywood confident. Check out the easy way their bodies merge and mold together. Their legs alone tell a story.  And their faces, the way they looked out from underneath their brimmed straw hats, each with his lips pressed together in mild curiosity, suggest a familial look of je ne c'est pas.

So glad I met this pair. The Masons definitely opened up my somewhat limited ideas about what's possible.

Landscape

I found this horizontal ode to water, grass, mud, and paint while exploring an abandoned house this weekend. There was a lot of beauty to be found in the swampy messy morning that followed a night of drenching rains.

I think I got about 17 bug bites making this one photograph, but every one seemed worth it.

Two for Tuesday: Mischief Making

It's hard to resist saying double trouble when remembering this twosome floating on the ocean's shore together. They captivated me last summer as I sat on my beach chair, pretending to read.

I loved the boys with the 1950s crewcuts and meaty shoulders. They reminded me of my brother when he was young. Together they splashed and hit each other and wrestled and created antics proving that play is indeed where all creativity resides.

The twins' parents, however, had had enough. The reprimands came one after the other, muted by the ocean winds and ignored by the pugnacious boys with a hundred games up their sleeves.

Ultimately, the boy with the look of surprise - mouth in uh-oh mode, eyes fixed on the authorities - was grabbed by the arm, pulled from the water, and made to sit beside his irritated mom.

A duo separated is like a piano in an empty room.

Open Canvas

This beat up van caught my eye because of it's deKoonig doorhandle. What a story. An invitation. Life in every dot and swirl and dent.

Two for Tuesday: A Given

Up and down, his and hers, this and that, north and south, salt and pepper. Certain archetypal, inseparable twosomes are givens. But not so many are as cute as this tiny twosome, these friends pressed together close and familiar, buddy buddy, standing square-shouldered on the table.

I could wax philosophical about the duality of life and how the churning of bright and dark floods my spirit on a daily basis, but, gosh, these metal-capped miniatures cry out for simple thoughts.

A sprinkle of salt, a shake of pepper.

That's it.

And it makes me happy remembering the day these glass chums caught my eye. It was years ago at Boston's Contemporary Art Museum when I spotted them standing trim and tidy on a cafe table, ready for lunch hour to begin. They looked artful, their spouts harmonizing with the oval holes of the orange chair behind them, nearly as smart and graphic as the Shepard Fairey show I'd gone to see.

Knowing Enough

Loving where I am is what I've been trying to do in a more wide awake and deliberate way. About a year ago, I started exploring the dilapidated South. It's a great part of where I live. I enjoy the beauty of the worn out, the abandoned, the discards such as this numberless rusted thermometer.

Fortunately I live with a man who is happy to press on the brakes and pull off the side of the road at a moments notice. It comes in handy, that's for sure. Yesterday we peeled off somewhere near Stuart, Virginia on a day that was, as you see, as hot as Hades. The red line of heat stretches nearly to the top. One more inch and we would officially be in hell.

The simple thermometer is a mess but it's still keeping track, and that's more than any of our current digital devices could probably manage under these conditions and after so long a time.

I recently read a wonderful definition of visual literacy by a photog and scholar named Christopher James. Visual literacy is the ability to see. More specifically, it is the capacity to interpret, associate, and communicate signs, symbols, codes, signals, metaphors, and marks.

It's possible to know a lot, know enough certainly, without even a word or number. And, really, it's no wonder given the signs, symbols, codes, signals, metaphors, and marks everywhere we look.

Two for Tuesday: Making Faces

Saw this dynamic duo dance last night at Duke. Monica Bill Barnes, the one with the black scarf and squiggly lips, choreographed a riveting duet that she danced in with Anna Bass, the lady with the big mouth. They danced like mad to Tina Tuner's soaring live version of Proud Mary. It's a song that warms up super slow and then burns for about ten juicy minutes.

They walked onto stage wearing sequined dresses and gray sneakers. Their silliness and eyebrows catapulted me into a happy state. Go for it, ladies. Knock yourselves out. Be elegant. Be a goofball. Be whatever Proud Mary wants you to be.

Their dance included long riffs of synchronized dancing, dazzling foot work and hand gestures all done at precisely the same time. Duets always involve tuning into the others' timing. But this couple's performance dazzled with intricate unity. The Monica/Anna duo mirrored with a thousand little split-second moves that clung to the music like a tight dress.

Monica and Anna'd get jamming, moving hard to Tina's voice and when suddenly they'd make a riotous face at each other or the audience. They'd flash an exaggerated look of surprise or love, uh-oh or ecstasy. There's a little whiff of circus performance wafting around this Tuesday's twosome.

During the post-performance Q 'n A, I asked Monica what it's like working as a twosome? How are duets different from solos? Her answer was very non-technical.

I danced solo for five years, she said. I was all I could afford.
I was so relieved to have someone else on stage. Anna and I have danced for ten years together. We have a movement, information that we understand together. 
There's a sense of not being alone in performance. I'm less lonely and vulnerable. It's more assuring to have the duet to work with.


Later I ran up to the foot of the stage with my shaky hands and phone and asked for a photograph.  I asked them to make one of their faces and they slid right into this pose.

Noir Time

It's been a busy time and I missed a Tuesday and the garden is overflowing with weeds and a nasty varmint who ate my stunning sunflower that was right out of Jack and the Beanstalk. Oh well. There is this light and this shadow. There is always the basic writing with light photography that remains a constant.

I like the noir quality zigzagging the hallway. It reminds me of the scariest damn movie I watched this week, which was a mixed and harrowing affair.  Before the Devil Knows You're Dead  is a knockout film - Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, a freaky drug dealer in a kimono - but, man, it's so frightening. I could barely fall asleep afterward and then dreamed about bombs exploding, which is not my typical nightmare drama - those usually involve cars and no keys and sand. Lots of sand.

Two for Tuesday: Attachment

Two diverse worlds collide this Tuesday as I think about the man named Badger I met in the parking lot of a thrift shop in Cottonwood, Arizona. He's a preacher who lives in his Toyota van and has, it seems, for a very long time. The man experienced a conversion and holds a belief so strong that every day he parks his van by the side of the road where he preaches the gospel, surrounded by heat and dust and his handmade signs proclaiming the power of his lord.

As we talked, he pulled out his special doll named Miss Susie. He blew the dust off her face, wiped her eyes with his thumb, and smiled. "I've had this doll for 22 years," he said. "Miss Suzie and I go way back." For a man who lives in a van and has lived several lifetimes in his lifetime, it's fairly remarkable to me that Miss Susie has survived the journey, that she's remained the cherished possession of this bonafide anti-materialist. I mean, really, what are the chances? Practically zero to none.

I'm not sure what to say about this unlikely pair other than attachments can be mysterious and surprising and deep.

Later in the week, I heard a New York intellectual, Akiko Busch, lecture about the power of objects in our lives. The line from her talk that stays with me is this: "We think with the objects we love. We love the objects we think with."

I wonder about the love and thoughts Badger has shared with Miss Susie, the black doll in the comfy white pajamas.

Sum,Sum, Summertime

Summertime is here and the weather is so sweet I want to can it to keep on the shelf.

Found this fountain during this week's early evening wind down walk with Ree. It's in a park, a place where this old school style fountain has stood in its stance of offering since, when - 1950, 1963, maybe 1970?

All day long Ree and I whirled and tumbled and scribbled during a bona fide remarkable writing workshop taught by the cheerful and intelligent, the man with the cap, Dan Mueller. Ree and I needed our walks. We needed to erase the board.

Still, my head is full of words and ideas. Confabulation is one. The ascending arcs of energy is another.

Two for Tuesday: Crossing Together

Thinking about father's day up ahead made me go find a favorite twosome I discovered one day waiting at a traffic light in Chicago. The bald and the spiked make a lovely broad-shouldered pair.

They appear so stocky and strong, and yet there is something about the way they hold hands, the cuffed and frayed jeans, the upright stance of the boy and the knowing rightward tilt of his daddy that brings a little tenderness to this father and son, hairy and hairless pair.

Two for Tuesday: Taking Off

This twosome is an aspirational moment that lifts me beyond the bounds of my routinized thinking.

Why not  unlace the sneakers and head down the trail? Who says you need protection to be safe? When did it become a rule to keep everything grounded and covered up?

What attracts me most about this pair of leaping feet is that it suggests a lift off that may never end. Perhaps this is the beginning of a journey touched by magic.

It makes me think of something my hero Joseph Campbell once said: "We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about."

Caught

Got a little improvisational and silly free the other day. Such a different method of working after the whole narrative dress project with its clear storyline and outfits. The summer has been an open window so far. Hoping for more.

I heard a great interview on Fresh Air with the director/writer Wes Anderson. He said he doesn't like to think too hard about the meaning of everything when he's making something new. I want it to be a little odd, he said, abstract, maybe poetic.

Cheers to not knowing and to the odd surprises.

Two for Tuesday: Gerber Eyes

Two for Tuesday, times 2. I just can't decide between color or black and white, but I'm leaning toward the black and white.

Thanks to Kiki for coming into town and for being up for a little reshoot of this floral arrangement. We first made this image (and came close to getting it right) one hot day last summer...or maybe the summer before. Honestly, I can't keep track of time that well anymore. I live in the realm I call the three-plus years. Whenever I want to say something happened two years ago or five or ten, I always add three more years, knowing that my inner calculator is a wonky worn-out contraption prone to underestimating.

What I like about this twosome is that one Gerber daisy fraying at the bottom of the right eye. The imperfection adds interest and texture. Wish I could feel that way about my own imperfections. Imagine how it would feel if they were seen as a lovely and inevitable disturbance, an interesting part of being human.

Beginning of Summer

Almost in.
The breath before the dive under.