A Cloud Day

Yesterday Clif and I went exploring and taking photographs. It was one of those perfect sky days. We started out with a dead battery (thankfully in the driveway) which threatened to ruin the trip before we started but Sears came through with a new battery and we were on our way by 9:30. A little late for sunrise but the sky was absolutely gorgeous the whole day. Nice blue sky with white puffy clouds and a few threatening ones to give it some character. We started out at Merritt Island, going down some roads we hadn’t been down before. Then we went to the Enchanted Forest and finished up the day at Vierra Wetlands. The threatening clouds took over and it poured down rain. We had been going since 8 AM so we left before sunset but not without getting some nice photographs of the sun coming through the clouds after the rain.

Spiritual Renewal

I’m going to take a break from the train scenes to recommend a couple of websites. The first is www.zenhabits.net.

I really like this time of year when I get step back and look at the previous season and regroup, look at better ways of doing things. I get to look through the photographs I’ve taken and pick the wheat from the chaff. This year, though, there seemed to be so many things to do. I’m feeling the spiritual hit of doing too much. I found myself getting irritable and ineffective. It seemed the more I did, the more I had to do and I was often in a state of what I call, analysis paralysis. I would come into my office in the morning and try to determine what to do first and end up playing a game to clear my head which led to another game and the next thing I know it’s time to get ready for my job and I have done exactly nothing. I considered removing my favorite solitaire game from my computer. It was a sucking vortex that led, not to relaxation, but to more stress.

The first thing I did was to get back to my spiritual morning time. I also made a change and now I go outside in the morning for my prayers and meditations. The early morning is so nice, so full of promise. I almost miss having a dog that forced me to get outside in the early morning. Note to self – There are a lot of things about having a dog that I do NOT miss. I like my cat. It is a relationship of equals. I handle the food and occasional vet visits. He handles his own toilet and cleaning needs. Well I do clean the kitty litter but that is infinitely preferable to picking up dog poop from the back yard.

Anyway, I shared my new routine with a friend of mine and he recommended this website. It has many writings on how to simplify your life and as a consequence get more of the important things done. At first it seemed like every task was insurmountable. What do you mean don’t multitask? Well I have been making a conscious effort not to multitask and I have gotten more done. Then yesterday I tried another suggestion. I cleared my inbox. I went through and deleted and cataloged until I am now down to two items in my inbox. One is a link to the website I will talk about next and one is a very important task I have to do. I created a couple of folders for things I need to monitor daily but everything that comes into my inbox now gets read, dealt with and either cataloged or deleted. I am amazed at the feeling of freedom of an almost empty inbox.

Scenes from a Train - 3

This is not a picture from a train but from a train station. Anyone who has been there should know exactly where this is. Guesses anyone?

Scenes from a Train 2 - The Gardener

When taking photographs from a train one feels a little like a voyeur. I get a quick glimpse of a life or area and my mind immediately makes assumptions. What do I know about this man? Very little actually. I know that he is standing in front of a nicely maintained house looking at a tree early on a Tuesday afternoon. There is a wheelbarrow on the sidewalk and he is dressed for outdoor work. Of course it is only from his build that I am assuming it is a man at all. Something about his posture and dress makes me think he is up in years.

So from this little bit of info I have developed a story in my mind about this photograph. This man and his wife have lived in this home for many years. They have raised their children in this home. All along, while working to raise his family this man landscaped and maintained his yard. Now he is retired and he putters in the yard to pass his time.

Of course he could just as easily be a hired gardener for the rich family living inside who is off to school and work at this time. It is a big house and you can’t see if from the cropped photograph but the original shows a very big yard. But it seems too modest a home, especially being right by the railroad tracks, for a family that can afford a gardener. Maybe he has just been hired to put down mulch but where is his work truck?

What do you think? Tell me a story of this man and this house.

Scenes from a Train - 1

Hello, I promise you I have set a reminder for myself and a new plan to update my blog more frequently. I have some photographs to show you and talk about so that should keep me going for awhile.

Last June I talked about taking a train to see my daughter. On the way up I got a small room on the train rather than just a seat and I spent the time taking a lot of photographs. It was more a way to pass the time and I expected maybe to get one or two that were decent. I got several more and I’m going to put them together in a series called “Scenes From a Train”. This is one of them.

I call this “Now is Forever Gone”. Riding on the train I was intrigued by this car that was driving on the road next to us. It stayed with us for a short while until a change in the road took it off to the side. When I first looked at the photograph I wished that I had taken it when the car was more in the frame and I got to thinking about time. I remembered the phrase that is now its title. Say that phrase once to yourself and let it sink in. What I have done is blurred in circles. The car signifies us traveling through life. The outer circle at the left is very blurred, representing the far past. We remember things from our past but blurred. As each circle gets closer to the car it is less blurred until the circle surrounding the car is in sharp focus. The area in front of the car is blurred as well. We think we can see the future but it is blurred as well. And just as the road took a turn our future can as well.

I will share more of these with you in the coming days.

History and Change

Wow, I am behind! As usual. This technology age is kind of like a lifetime game of wack-a-mole. The newsletter is on time, the website is fairly up to date, and up pops the blog. And now I’m supposed to twitter or tweet…sigh. And forget about my MySpace page, all it has is a couple links to here and my website. It doesn’t help that I have become addicted to playing Spore.

At any rate the shows have been doing well for me. Perhaps my expectations are low since I really hit my stride with good work and good shows just as the economy was tanking so my doing well may be someone else’s barely getting by but I’m happy.

I usually get into about 50% of the shows I apply to, this year it has been more like 80%. I’m worn out. Still excited about the rest of the season, but worn out. I’m very excited about Northern Virginia Festival of the Arts. It’s a long ride, an expensive show, and I really don’t have that great of a spot, but there is more to doing that particular show to me. I lived in that area for 40 years and there is a sense of coming back and saying “see, this is who I really am”. It’s not that it was a bad place to live or that there were any bad experiences there. It’s just that the weight of forty years of history, of living less than 2 miles away from where I went to high school, has a way of stagnating a person. In Florida I have had the chance to grow in directions I didn't anticipate, to step into the road less traveled.

There are wonderful things about history though. Last week I bought tickets to the Peter, Paul, and Mary concert at Wolf Trap. I first saw Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert when I was 11 years old. I went off and on through the years and when my daughter was seven I took her to her first concert. Usually we got good seats, one year we lucked out and got seats in the front row. This year it will be lawn tickets because this year I will be bringing my grandchildren too. And yes, I will be flying to Virginia for the weekend just to go to a concert.

Hello 2009

I was looking up a photo on my blog and I realized it has been way too long. So here I am again. Shows have started up again for me and I’m in the middle of doing my first show of 2009, the Audubon Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. It is bitter cold here (well, in Florida terms) and I am so glad this show is inside. I feel badly for the people who came from out of state to be here. The festival is not an art show. It is a combination of field trips, speakers, and exhibits, all about birds. People come from all over the country and some of them are rather disappointed that the weather here is not any warmer than where they came from.

I got two exciting acceptances last week. One from Vero Beach, Under the Oaks for March 13 – 15 which is supposed to be a very good show and the other, drum roll please, is Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival on May 16 – 17. My home town finally gets to see what I’ve been doing for the past 9 years.

It’s too early to tell what effect the economy will have on shows for me. I haven’t done Audubon in four years and my work has changed so much that I can’t really compare. I didn’t make any sales yesterday but I also forgot and left my 8 x 10s at home and with all the people from out of town this is a small item show. The focus isn’t really on the art here so it’s an impulse buy situation and I didn’t have any impulse buy items.

The photo above is from one of the photo trips I took when I was visiting family in Virginia over Thanksgiving.