Happy Birthday, America

It rained here all day yesterday, so most of the scheduled fireworks displays were kind of fizzled out. In their place, I decided to post a few photos from past celebrations.






Happy Birthday, America!

Now I get it, Monet.

The last time I went to our place in the country, the pond had adopted some new inhabitants- water lilies. I'm pretty fascinated by water in general, as you may have noticed, and this development gave me a whole new angle on photographing water.




To be honest, I had never thought about why Monet painted waterlilies again and again. I guess I thought he painted them because, well, they were THERE.


I do understand why he was drawn to water as a subject, though. The colors, the effects of light on its surface, reflecting sky, land, trees- it's an ever-changing and mesmerizing show. Water can move with great force, carrying huge trees as if they were matchsticks, or be as absolutely still as the surface of a mirror. The mysteries of its depths and the life within them captivate me.


Water can appear as smooth as glass until broken by the undulation of a wave. Sometimes it looks like ice, or, oddly enough, jello. It encompasses three worlds: beneath, surface, and reflected above. Perhaps this is what gives it its magical qualities, often spoken of in fairy tales and other stories.




When I began to look at the lily pads on the water, I realized they were connected to the soil on the bottom of the pond by what appear to be long, thin strings. While I had always that they're green, in actuality they vary from yellow to green to red to purple. Moving with the liquid they rest upon, they float on top, and sometimes carry water themselves.


So I took bunches of pictures, not really expecting them to be very interesting.


When I downloaded them onto my computer, I was completely amazed. Why Monet never tired of painting them, why he put them on canvases as big as the side of a house- I get it now.

Transformation 34

I just finished this piece, which I have been struggling with for some time. I have no idea why; it seems pretty simple and straightforward. Sometimes I think I can become too analytical, nit-picking and agonizing over every little decision. It can be difficult to just let go and be in the moment of creating. When I worry too much about the result ("Don't mess up!", as one of my professors told me), I just can't seem to get out of my own way. I always tell my students that making mistakes is nothing to fear, as long as we learn something from it. Words of wisdom, indeed. Remember: it's the process, not the product; it's the process, not the product...

Fly Away

Today I want to fly away,
(no thinking)
to rise,
(no planning)
to ride on a cool breeze;
(no worrying)

no thinking.
no planning.
no worrying.

Drop a bundle of regrets
into the deepest sea.

forget all boundaries.
just be.

today
I want to fly away.

Transformation 18 (state II): recycling

I'm doing some more of these small pieces, since they're what the gallery's selling right now. This is an old piece that I wasn't happy with; it had been put in the "scrap" pile. Sometimes old throwaways can spark new ideas. So I re-worked it, adding more things, subtracting others. These collage pieces are a great way to recycle things that don't work out, giving them a new "life". I've found that the oddest little bits of things can come in handy later on- you just never know. Of course, this does nothing at all for the organizational state of my studio!

Butterfly Girl (Little Mona Lisa)

This was another Photoshop exercise. I took this photo at a recent butterfly show at the Krohn conservatory. Unfortunately, it was a very dark and rainy day, so it turned out pretty grainy. But I liked the image because the girl had such a mysterious expression- an inscrutable smile, you could say. She reminded me of a young version of the Mona Lisa, so I wanted to see if I could fix the photo. I thought it would be cool, since it was grainy, to make it appear to be an old sepia print, with the butterfly in color to make it stand out more. I ended up calling my son, who guided me through the process of making a mask, etc., to accomplish this, which we finally did. Another problem was that the girl's face was at the edge of the frame, so there was a lot of unwanted space behind her. We were able to kind of blur this out and make it darker, but the yucky composition still bugged me, so I cropped it. My son said it was not "professional" to crop the frame, and that it was still too grainy. I had hoped to enter it in a photo contest, but because the quality isn't what it should be, I guess I'll just chalk it up to a learning experience. I still like it this way, though.

4 pieces sold!

I was happy to hear from the gallery that 4 of my pieces sold this past weekend. One couple bought 3, and then a woman came in wanting to buy 4(!), but there were only 2 left. she took one, but wants more, so the gallery owner has asked me for 6- 8 more pieces. So I ordered frames last night, and spent the day matting, with the help of my daughter. Anyway, here are some of the pieces that I'm going to take, as soon as the frames get here!