Nighttime Playground
Posted on June 16, 2015
I’ve been a little behind in posting the images from the iPhone Eternal Childhood series to the blog. Here’s one I did a couple months ago: “Nighttime Playground.”
Each night, the Moon kisses secretly the lover who counts the stars. ~~Rumi
Caught
Posted on May 24, 2015
This piece originally began with what I thought would be a series (and it may still be). I was working on two different pieces dealing with our relationship as humans with the “natural world.” I was unhappy with where I had gotten with both of them and on a whim I decided to try them together. Violà!
This piece, called “Caught,” looks at the vicious circle that develops with our treatment of the “natural world.” Our ignorance of our interconnectedness with it (and our actions originating from that lack of knowledge) creates a scenario that teaches us how interconnected we really are (think climate change’s effects) in a way that feels less like being part of a whole or in a relationship and more like being at the mercy of an angry, powerful Other–one we helped to create. As nature gets sicker, we get sicker. As we pollute nature, we pollute ourselves.
These were the two pieces that went into “Caught”:
The first was created originally from a photo I took at a rest stop on Mother’s Day and another that I’d taken a couple months back. The idea was to intertwine the human with the tree, including its roots.
The second was taken from a photo I took last weekend at Jones Bridge Park in Norcross, GA. A cement block was lodged in the Chattahoochee river along with other debris. It was combined with another photo I took a few months ago. Here, it’s the idea of being “caught” (cement block around the head, and his appearing to rest in it and smile) in our own trash and being completely oblivious.
We’ll see if it develops into a series….
Light Present and Past
Posted on May 18, 2015
Last week my uncle was baling hay and I couldn’t resist taking my phone and getting a few shots of the farm and bales one evening.
I grew up going to his and my grandparents’ farm, staying weekends and weeks at a time over the years. Those were hot halcyon days filled with hazy, diffused sunlight and (barely) cool breezes blowing through the windows in the evening.
I was playing around with the Retrolux filter in the Snapseed app and came up with something that gets a little closer to what the farm means to me. The landscape shot through with memory, filled with light both present and past.
At a Rest Stop on Mother’s Day
Posted on May 10, 2015
I don’t know why I’d never stopped at this rest area before. It’s the first one, right inside the South Carolina line coming from Georgia. It’s not like I haven’t driven that stretch of road dozens of times over the years. But today, I stopped. I’m glad I did. The rest stop sits on Lake Hartwell, and behind the mandatory rest stop facilities are a thick swath of trees on land gently sloping towards the water. I got out my phone, of course. I took lots of photos, but these, of a little girl, were the ones I liked best. Her mom was there taking photos of her (you can see her in the second photo)–a nice Mother’s Day outing. They both were having a blast.
Eternal Childhood: Looking Forward, Looking Back
Posted on May 6, 2015
Another iPhone creation for the Eternal Childhood series. Looking into the past for its own promises, fulfilled–or maybe not quite fulfilled–can be an endless process, an endless regress that may not reveal any new wisdom–and we might miss the promise right in front of us, smaller at the moment, but glowing brightly, ready to lead on.
Yesterday’s Unplanned Trip to the Cemetery
Posted on May 2, 2015
What made me stop the car was seeing this juxtaposition:
A fire hydrant.
And just behind–flowers to honor and remember the dead.
Are they not both there to “save” something?
I’ve loved cemeteries for the last several years, finding them not spooky and macabre but peaceful and full of gentle but hopeful reminders of our finite life as human beings. Cemeteries remind me not (just) of death but of a life that is beyond our ultimate control everyday–nonetheless, it is one that is beautiful and still full of meaning and love, no matter how imperfect.
Yesterday was a very windy day and the flag at this headstone had gotten caught in itself. Nevertheless, it still flew like a sail, very beautifully.
The wind had knocked this wreath face down, but not the story behind it nor the intended interruption of death by the presence of remembrance in life.
Even our stone monuments to the dead crack, break, and fall when given enough time. But strangely, to me the brokenness gives a different type–a more interesting–beauty than the smoothness of the original headstones. Or it can. And no amount of breaking of tombstones will shatter a family’s memory of the past–and the largest, shiniest, newest headstone cannot ensure it.
The flowers here have blown to one side, contrasting with the (unshown) side where they are perfectly straight in their vase. I tend to think of life like this–we plan everything perfectly and then something comes along and knocks our plans to one side.
Sometimes we find we like it better that way.
Eternal Childhood: The things we carry
Posted on April 27, 2015
“The things we carry” is another piece in the Eternal Childhood series, which explores the magic not just of childhood, but of being human itself. A magic we could experience if we could but glimpse ourselves and the world differently for even one moment.
Eternal Childhood: Phases
Posted on April 19, 2015
A recent iPhone creation, using one of the photos I took last Sunday at Jones Bridge Park in Norcross, Georgia. It’s a part of a new series, Eternal Childhood, which explores the magic of childhood–a magic than can exist in every moment, even for adults.
“Resolve to be always beginning—to be a beginner!” –Rainer Maria Rilke
Kids. Water. Joy.
Posted on April 13, 2015
Jones Bridge Park on a Sunday (yesterday) afternoon–full of kids exploring cold water and playing with abandon.
Melissa D. Johnston Art 