Delay is done, some Colorado photos instead!

post #468
       Monday morning. I'm still on my Thanksgiving trip, in Denver, Colorado.  I fly back to Kentucky tomorrow. I think I will miss all the week's air traffic snarls across America! I didn't plan lucking out with my plans, but I'm sure happy it's breaking that way for me. 

        Well, here goes. I'm the grandma who went over the river and through the woods to get to this house where family live...

1. grandparents day at the school:
 

"Mine" is third from the right -- third graders

2. Denver art museum, Monet exhibit:

       Some of his words were projected on a screen. I  loved how close his words about painting are the same ones I would use for photography.

The next painting is not Monet, obviously, but I'm glad I discovered this corner with a quiet bench -- after the rooms full of people who, like me, had managed to get a ticket to the Monet exhibit (thank you, family.)

3. The whole morning SWIM MEET, next day (a Saturday). Both kids were involved.

4. learning about my new camera, with some help from a Kentucky photographer friend now living in Denver...

This is his way of trying out the double photo feature..... His whole approach was playful and so very helpful.

 5. Using the new camera:

Wednesday morning

lots and lots of snow, in Denver

same table when we returned to Denver!  still like this today!

     4. We were in the mountains for three days over Thanksgiving, with LESS snow than we left behind in Denver.

my footprints next to something else's prints...

my son, running up the slope, me walking down the slope...

My daughter-in-law starts a new job today, as the Executive Director of the Colorado Outward Bound School, and she asked me to take some possible PR photos.  There's nothing like HAVING to use a new camera to help learn HOW to use one!! Thank you, Lauren, and congratulations with your new position!!

 5. the way home, Friday night, photo by cell phone....

      I hope everyone has had a good week. I am grateful for so many things, and the fun I have doing this blog is one of those. 

People, second post, more eastern Kentucky moments

post #433
        More, more, more! With my current (but temporary) lack of mobility, I am enjoying "being with" these folks whose photos I have taken, usually spontaneously. Thank you all!!
       

friendly fellow woods photographers

a  friend's January visit here, from Oregon

big 80th birthday party

the birthday girl

her daughter, Sandy, at a 4H competition

Sandy's granddaughter, and her 4H prize winner

Junie, at his home (with my granddaughter!)

 

Jean, of the photo Jean's jeans....

 

Jean's jeans (one of several versions over the years)

Jean's husband, Garry, has died, and it has been hard for everyone:

Garry's nephew

Garry's daughter with Jonathan, who was like a son

such a smile!

For some reason, I find this guy hilarious -- very rooted in the community, for sure.

 

artist and quilter

Jennifer, friend and artist and clear thinker

         Next week I will do more grandchildren, and other kids.  Then the last week will be folks I have visited in different places.  By then I should be back on both feet, instead of only one, and back out in the world. With my camera!  Hooray, hooray!

most any kind of artist needs alone time

post #363
          I realized this morning that this would be the first day in two weeks when I am entirely alone! For the "happy hermit" I often am, that's a big deal. In any case, I thought I would honor the thought and the reality by gathering up some photos I have taken BECAUSE I was alone. Today I found 10 from just the last 3 months. Since I never want to take all my readers' time, this for me is enough photos for one post. I've now decided to do the other 2017 months two by two, every two weeks, with my Thanksgiving trip and other such fun "out in the world" experiences in between. 
         That's the reality of my life, actually. I'm a very fortunate person to still be doing my photography, to be learning from it all the time, and to be grateful that I enjoy my own company, especially when I am working with my camera. As is often said, a certain amount of time alone is essential for most kinds of creative work.
        I can tell when I'm "in the zone." That's where I call it, anyway. It's esssential. It's not called loneliness; instead it's called working or creativity or pure dumb luck.

Most artists and writers prefer to work alone so they can draw, paint, sculpt, or write from their heart, that place of flow where the unconscious plays freely.  (common statement)

on Martha's Vineyard's Lucy Vinson Beach, alone with the footprints of others and my friend Patty who knows how to leave me alone for a bit in such a place

my mailbox, looking north

 

a later fall day, getting the mail with my iPhone, facing south on Sideway Road

in the woods nearby

framing the fall while stopped on the driveway where I used to live

making art almost by accident with my 50mm lens and some Red Maple leaves

a lone duck on the homestead pond

obvious lone duck approaching the lone oblivious photographer who doesn't then need to risk slipping into the pond with her camera....

up close and personal, my following the foal as he grows and before he is taken as payment for his white mama

Such splendor zones me out even with a few other people around. I want to SEE it with my own eyes and heart, but I also want to share it with others. Therefore I concentrate on doing both experiences. I call this a kind of street photography, trying to capture the unexpected with honesty. I'll post more photos from Colorado next week.

     I even zone out when I do these posts on this blog. Sometimes I think I enjoy making my posts just because it invariably provides zone out time. Well, I also do enjoy just sharing my photos. All the same time, I'm appalled that the EPA and its minions can think we need less access to nature, and that they have no concern for preserving clear water, etc.  Even though I am an artist, I don't want to zone out so much that I forget my outrage and disappointment at the scams currently being hoisted on our nation by short-sighted greed  -- edging out goodness and common sense for the time being, like a stinky fog over the land.

responses to last week's threats about war

post #354

       This week I want to speak up from within poetry and photography. I want to lament some of the current fashion for bully tactics, name calling and contemplation of bombs and annililation. Many of us are not in the least amused by fruitless threats of warfare. There are always other options, some requiring knowledege and thought-through plans, ones that may not show instant results but which have more of a chance for staying power. Other writers can lay out these options with more coherence than I possess, but, at this point in time, as a citizen of this nation, I am feeling compelled to draw on my art, so to speak, to try to make  some sense and to support compassion in the face of greed.
           Last week my monthly writers group met, in Lexington, and I was very moved by this poem that Martha Gehringer had written. So I asked her if I could share it, with a few photos of mine. Thank you, Martha, for your poetry.          Poetry and imaging help me to see things in new ways, to find the hope that is always somewhere there, and to reach across the stuck parts of our lives. Thank you, artists all.

 

Antecedent

“South Korea is finding, as I have told them,

that their talk of appeasement with North Korea

will not work, they only understand one thing.”

 Trump Tweet, 2 hrs ago

The morning before something big—

some big thing like this that looms,

we take in the view from where we sit—

the late summer garden, green still,

though bedraggled.  Our limelight

hydrangeas blooming soft against the sky—

 

against a looming sky.  See how they have

gone from chartreuse to white to pinkish now—

How they hang—heavy—wet mop heads—

mop heads they are called.  And the arc

of them on their weakish stems such a lovely,

lovely, lovely lank.  Beyond them, all still

green, the ivy leaves, the clover leaves,

the broad and promising leaves of violets.

Come Spring, they will (at least for now

we still believe they will) make purple flower.

The tall grasses in the neighbor’s field

are full of what cannot be seen but surely

surely is there.  Yes. 

Nonetheless. 

Yes. 

walking where a poet works

post #352
       Recently I had lunch and a walk with friends W. and T. who live on the Kentucky River. Their part of Kentucky is not in Appalachia, but, in our state, artists, writers and social action people are very connected and supportive of one another. It's one of the amazing riches that our state seems to create. I met W. with other writers and photographers he had gathered up to begin some awareness of the terrible harm done by mountaintop removal mining. Articles, poems, books, and artworks grew out of this shared effort over a long period of time. Yes, MTR mining is better known and understood by now, but the clean water and community health issues continue to be as urgent as ever. Many of us continue with this work and more.
      After our lunch and the visit part, W. went back to work, and I took a walk. It's wonderfully flat there along the river. Here are a few photos that I made just because I was happy, grateful and energized to be there on such a beautiful afternoon. Thank you, friends, as always, for your kindness and generosity and caring about so many things.

what's hot on a winter stove in August....

This looked like a grand palace entrance to me....

 

I love a gate and always have.

       On the way back to my car, I suddenly felt I wanted to try to capture where I was as if in a dream to take with me to revisit. So, first, here's what my eyes saw, there on the poet's path, and then I made a photo how it "really" looked as I got ready to return to a more public place. I have no idea if it works for anyone else. But, believe me, I loved giving it a try.

        There is so much to say. I hope my photos speak as well as my words might. 
        I'll save my thoughts about what goes on in the world until next week. Thank you for visiting my post this week.