The Metamorphosis of a Young Stream

A Delicate Blush
original photograph by artist

While another storm has spread a thick skin of ice and snow, I played "pretend" with my photographs, working with different techniques learned over the past few weeks.

When working with this image, I kept recalling the images and illustrations from children's classic literature, particularly those by N.C. Wyeth (Andrew Wyeth's father), Arthur Rackham and Maxfield Parrish.

There is a kind of woodcut look to this particular technique and believe me, it was pure hit-or-miss.

Sometimes we stumble along various paths, not quite sure where the path is taking us, just letting the mistakes and back-tracks lead and guide.

So, digitally, I wandered -- until I reached this point.

I had to stop, not because of any pride at what I had done (that was the question: what had I done?), but because the nature of the image had morphed, had spread little delicate wings and offered me a peek at the blush of its' newly softened hues, the quiet of its' waters and the dreaminess of its' new self.

I was honored.

Give us unquiet dreams
leaning softly out
from ferns that drop their tears
over the young streams

William Butler Yeats

Mid-Winter Thoughts

"Winter Trees"

original photograph by artist
(background texture by Telzey)

Closing in on the middle of Winter. Although the light is slowly returning -- what a delight not to drive home in the dark -- the bleakness of it all is wearing me down. It's right about now that I yearn for tropical colors that punch and pulsate and for fragrances that make one swoon.

I feel like I have been wearing black, brown and gray for decades. The house is filled with cooking smells and the scents of frustration, entrapment and just plain old crabbiness.

So, I feel a shift in palette coming on -- let's break out those fiery reds, those neon yellows, those party-animal oranges! Turn on the salsa and brazilian jazz and dance around the living room, scaring partners and the mailman alike . . . or not.

The spring will be here soon enough, along with the list of gardening jobs to be done, the spring cleaning -- all of which I am anxious for, don't get me wrong. But that also signals to me that my quiet hours of being holed up inside my studio area are over for the time being.

So, it's a catch-22. We humans are such an odd lot, never satisfied with the here-and-now, always glancing over the next ridge, hoping for a quick skirmish, a climb up Mt. Everest, a leisurely swim across the Channel.

Another thought to leave you with, my blogging friends . . .

" . . . the living world is the natural domain of the most restless and paradoxical part of the human spirit. Our sense of wonder grows exponentially; the greater the knowledge, the deeper the mystery and the more we seek knowledge to create new mystery."

Edward O. Wilson, Ecologist

Creativity and Chaos Soup

"Chaotic Pips"
photo by me - :~)

The age-old question: what am I doing here on earth? how can I create? where did I put my ATM card? Burning questions that badger us, shove us around in a kind of whirling dervish spin until we drop from mental and emotional exhaustion, and quite literally end up doing nothing.

And where does it get us, may I ask? Same spot, just deeper into the hole.

I was just reading Marla Baggetta's blog where she writes: " . . . I dance to the stupid songs every day. I keep myself happy and warm. I live large in my own little world. . . . Did you make something? Did you write something, paint something . . . ? I hope you did. If you did, you made this world a better place."

Or in the words of Sir John Eccles, Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine:

“I want you to understand that there are no colors in the real world.
That there are no textures in the real world.
There are no fragrances in the real world.
There is no beauty, there is no ugliness.
Nothing of the sort.
Out there is a chaos of energy soup and energy fields.
Literally.
We take that and somewhere inside ourselves we create a world.
Somewhere inside ourselves it all happens.”

That is my entry for today. I hope it encouraged you
to dance with your energy soup of chaos!

Serendipitous Emphasis

Sometimes, when least expected, odd things happen. You're tripping along, doing this, doing that -- and then wham! Now this could be a good wham or it can be a bad wham. Today, it was a good one.

I was working on a new digital image and, after two hours' work, I decided to take a break. I needed to just play for awhile, poking at some old flower images I had stored on the computer. Here is the original photo, nothing special except for the beauty of the blossom itself --


I then shifted it into its negative state and played with the hues until I reached this point --


Now I was intrigued. I opened an image of water in a glass vase I had taken this summer, overlaid the blossom and began to fiddle some more. After a few minutes of experimentation, this is the final result --

"Abstract Rhodie"

I feel like the photographic nature is almost gone except for the shape of the blossom, while the painterly aspects of the manipulation have evoked another image altogether, filled with energetic brushstrokes, highlights and a palette of colors I would not have thought of on my own.

Like I said -- wham!

"It is only by selection, by elimination,
by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things."

Georgia O'Keefe