three popular posts during the third year of my blog, and regional seasonal art venues

post #217
        My weekly posts have readers from all over the world, but the most come from the USA.  As I start on my 5th year of doing these posts -- every Sunday -- I have been sharing a few of the ones most viewed during each of the first four years.  Today is for year three, starting with post #122 on 1/27/13, titled "with a wood stove in our kitchen."
       Appropriately for our unusually early cold weather it shows our wood cook stove in action.  Indeed the stove is providing heat here today.  I don't know if visitors to this post were researching wood cook stoves and my post came up or whether they were experiencing cold weather and needed to think warm and toasty!

ash holder drawer, on the bottom

       That post also includes some winter photos by photographer John Flavell, so perhaps that could also be the reason for the high viewing numbers of this post....

        A second popular post is #148, from 7/28/13, titled "the country way of making room for the stuff of photography -- Sideway Gallery."  I am so fortunate to be able to have had this space for my work for almost four years now.  Living in the country makes this place both possible and necessary.

        One of the most popular posts ever is #114, on 12/2/12, featuring more of the photos Chris Garris had recently made in Indonesia.  Three of them are below.  The official title is "photos of Indonesia, part 3."  It also has photos by Carolyn Franzini, from her visit to Borobudur.  Thanks again to you both.
        

Ashley and Carolyn at Borobudur

        Before signing off, I want to share information about an art venue that has reopened this month -- in the Kentucky Market Pavillion along Interstate 64 near Owingsville, KY, off exit #123.   The displays look great, and they have great food.  The best info is on their Facebook page -- basically they are open daily 10 - 6, and noon - 5 on Sunday.  I have some notecards there, a selection of 12 x 16 matted prints, and copies of Counting on the Woods, signed by both myself and George Ella Lyon.  (Phone: 606/674-6688)
       I also sell photo note cards at CoffeeTree Books and at the Kentucky Folk Art Center, both in Morehead, KY, and at the Kentucky Artisan Center in Berea, KY, right off exit 77 on Intersate 75.
        Enjoy!!  And stay warm!!  Buy local, wherever you are and whenever you can!!

photos of Indonesia, part 3, with guest photographers

post #114
     I am happy to be able to share some photos of Indonesia by my neighbor, Chris Garris, who visited there in August, 2011.  He is an excellent photographer!  Chris currently lives and teaches in Saudi Arabia  -- and travels when he can.  Since the images my husband and I took there were made over 40 years ago, I thought it would be fun to see some current views of the place.  However, I will start with two photos taken by Carolyn during her recent visit to Indonesia -- last month! (see post #113)  Thanks, Chris and Carolyn, for letting me use your work.

    First, last month's view, at Borobudur.  Carolyn didn't take the first photo -- she is in it -- but it shows the sarongs that everyone is required to wear while visiting Borobudur.  Carolyn says there are now two luxury hotels nearby!  (As for us, back in the dark ages, we arrived there after riding a crowded bus to Mundelan.   "and then [from Frank, in our journal] hitched a ride the last 9 km with a Chinese and his kids from Suribaya.  We walked all over the edifice.  I was glad to have read bits from Claire Holt's Art in Indonesia [while we stayed earlier with friends of friends.]  Beautiful views from all sides of mountains and plains, planting goes all the way up to the nearby mountains.")

Borobudur, in 2012, now refurbished from when we were there in 1971

Thank you, Carolyn! It seems none of the rest of us had managed to catch this important view!

Borobudur, by Chris, in 2011, a view of the stupas that are part of Buddhist shrines, without any tourists in the view.

Chris says these fellows were very curious about strangers and tagged along for hours.

Indonesia has many variations of curious souls.  I really like this excellent photo Chris made, with its green shadings throughout the image.  I believe this is a long-tailed macaque?

By Chris: rice paddies.  In Bali?

Chris calls this photo Ancient Serenity.  I think it's a great title for this fine photo.

      It is also possible to see many, many images of Borobudur on GOOGLE IMAGES.  Very interesting to see them all.  However, I prefer showing photos made when I know the story that goes with them.  I may be adding a couple of photos to this post -- I asked Chris at the last minute if he had one or two favorites he wanted to share, and I hope he is willing to do so.  .... And now (Monday) Chris has sent two favorite photos -- thanks so much!

Raise Your Flag, by Chris, who adds "it turned out better than I could have hoped - I was snapping these kids candidly and somewhat slyly, because they were being a little sheepish. It was sunrise looking over Mt. Merapi at Borobudur."

Again, in Chris's words: "Nothing Left For Us Here is one of my favorites - perhaps from any location.  I'm a big fan of human and animal silhouettes, as well as dramatic shadows...they all came together in that shot, I think."

I am adding this second version that I tried to lighten, because on my laptop the first version is too dark.  On my desktop it looks just fine.  But it is not my photo, so this is an experiment which Chris and I will communicate about from opposite sides if the world! I suspect he doesn't mind the darker look, more like it was at the time he was seeing it, and the image looks fine on his computer.

        Please remember that if you click on any photo, they all become viewable in a larger size, at the bottom of the screen, waiting for another click.  Did you know that life is just a click away??   Go for it!

more from Indonesia, mostly Borobudur

post #113

      Indonesia again, with its kids in central Java eager to check us out.   I believe these folks all appeared while we were waiting for a train!  They didn't ask for anything in return.  There weren't all that many of us Americans off the beaten track back then.
     However, as promised, this post is mostly about the Buddhist temple of Borobudur, in central Java.  After looking up the place on Wikipedia, I learned that major renovations have occurred  since our visit there 40 years ago.  These few images may seem like ancient history!   Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world, is now also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and evidently the most visited location in Indonesia.  We, however, had the place pretty much to ourselves.

It seems we didn't take a slide of the front of the temple, so this is as much in situ as I can provide.

It would be so interesting to return for another look!

We liked how the building was so in harmony with the mountains.

For those who expressed curiosity about the journal and the notebook, when I mentioned them last week, here they are, together, loyal companions. 

A favorite photo from our whole trip, taken while visiting Prambanan

     I was thrilled to hear from my neighbor Chris last week in response to my last post.  It seems he is a remarkable photographer and was in Java last year.  I hope I can work it out to share some of his photos from Indonesia on this blog, very soon.  Maybe Carolyn or Ashley have a photo from there to share as well.  Cool!

    I want to end with an INVITATION: I will be sharing a "doublewide" next Saturday, the first of December, with Jennifer Reis at Morehead State University's annual Arts and Crafts Fair at the Laughlin Health Building Gym, from 9 to 4.  LOTS of note cards to choose from and photography banter and some matted photos and copies of Counting on the Woods.  Come see Jennifer's jewelry and her one of a kind embellished textile assemblages.  We have a great time.  Again this year I offer 10% off to any one who mentions this blog -- like Ann S. did last year -- and visit Appalachian Holiday Arts and Crafts on Facebook.

  Note: I have had expert preparation help this year from my friend Sandy, and I am grateful!

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a detour to the other side of the world

post #112
       A friend of ours, Carolyn, has just returned from a part of the world that my husband and I visited long ago, in the early 1970s, with our backpacks and a budget of $10 a day.  We left before Christmas and returned in late June.  
      Photographically, we took slides as we went along, mailing several rolls at a time to my mother from wherever we happened to be.  We thought she could follow what we were doing, but the reality is that those little packets greeted us when we got back to the States.  Had the camera not been working, we wouldn't have known until our return!!  
      Today I am going to scan some of the slides to share with Carolyn and with Ashley, whom she visited  -- and with the 100 or so weekly visitors to this blog.  We had one camera, one lens, and two of us taking turns making photos. So, duh, the ones I took for sure are the ones with hubby in them.  We also took turns writing daily in our journal, a legal size spiral notebook that now is a treasure of specifics.  In a smaller blue notebook, we kept track of addresses, when we mailed something, and of every coin we spent.  By the way, believe me, traveling cheaply is a lot of work.  And without networking along the way and staying with friends or friends of friends, we couldn't have pulled it off. 
      It was a most memorable trip, one I am so grateful to have made. A lifetime of stories. Once we started, I realized that I had always really just wanted to see what was on the other side of the world.   
 
       OK, today, therefore, is the Indonesia segment of the adventure. We arrived there in late January.  (We headed west most of the time.)  This is embarrassing to admit, even now, but one reason I wanted to go there was because I didn't really know where Indonesia was located!  Yet it was the fifth most populous nation in the world!  (It's now the fourth.)  How American ignorant is that!  It is such a beautiful place, very different from anywhere I had ever been before.  (Of all the countries we visited, we had always thought we would like to return to Indonesia, Japan and Afghanistan.  It hasn't happened -- yet.)

friends of a friend: Our letter to Winnie and Dick about our arrival was never delivered, so we showed up in their village unannounced!  They were wonderfully welcoming.  Notice the ducks in the canal behind them.  They had come from Boston so Dick could carry out a Harvard research project about rice growing in very rural central Java. 

ducks in another canal, started in the days when the Dutch were in charge

ducks in the fields, central Java, eating the fallen grains

taking some of the crop home at the end of the day

harvest time, with the kids fascinated by us strangers

riding in a cart, for half an hour, headed to an uncertain address

then traveling by train in central Java

      It takes a while to clean up these slides for viewing, so I will show the other half next week.  These include our visit to Borobudur, and more kids -- who seemed to show up where ever we went.  (These slides are somewhat worn, from being shown in my husband's classrooms for many years.)
      I know that since we were there forty years ago many things will have changed, but perhaps these images from back then will be of interest to those who live there or visit there now.  The people we met were unfailingly kind as well as curious and helpful.