THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL

January 30, 2011. Sometimes a burden can be 19 inches of snow, and sometimes it can be love. In either case, it seems, we learn to bend, and maybe with time we stand straight and tall again. In the spring I will visit this site again and see what has become of this tree, and me.

ABSTRACT

January 29, 2011. The snow causes everyday images to suddenly take on new dimensions and the usual twists and turns of branches are suddenly made all the more vivid and stark. What seemed so natural and perhaps unremarkable before the snow, is now wholly spectacular and riveting. This stand of trees, maybe because of the direction I was traveling, and the coming of the morning light, was enthralling to me.

BLACK SNOW

January 17, 2011. How tenaciously snow hangs on. The warm sun tries to melt it, but it doesn't want to go and these beautiful little filigree edges develop, light and lacy. The sun almost shines through them like glass. The mixture of debris and snow shines cristaline in the sun. The formation mimics underwater coral, surrounded by an ocean of air, moving around it, bringing an eddy of warm air to burrow holes into the mound, breaking through the surface, helping to make more of the icy fingers. It's singular beauty will soon be gone.

WALK

January 16, 2011. What a wonderful invention perspective is, and what a discovery it must have been for the first artist who used it. A slight shortening of a line, a twist of another and movement is both implied and understood. How random was this development, or was it just a matter of acute observation? In the middle of a crosswalk by Washington Square Park, this little figure may have once stood tall, but seems surprised by his flattening, as if a tire took him by surprise, or someones shoe did. He will soon fade into the debris swept up by the plow or shovel, but I saw him, and in seeing, the artist's work was observed.

JUST A REMINDER

January 15, 2010. Some days I just need a reminder, a sign that everything can be ok. I stopped at my library - Astor Wines & Liquors - to read labels and bring home a few. Then I walked down the street and here was a big thumbs up. The friendly smiling face stenciled on the wall, eyes straight on, assured, confident that tomorrow will be better, and letting each person who passes by know the same. I love the attention paid to the hand, the grey and black of his fingers, even more confident than his face. It emerges from the background, attached to nothing visibly, but surely attached emotionally.

BANANA YELLOW

January 14, 2011. Yellow. The color of a banana, or pants for a banana. The color of a blazing summer sun, like the one we drew as children on those first sheets of paper - capturing the breezy days - or maybe just something to make a parent smile. Yellow is a happy color. It radiates warmth and optimism. We don't use it enough in our lives.

FLOCKING

January 9, 2010. The birds have been gathering, flocking by their kind. Here there are sparrows, another spot robins, ducks on the lake and then pigeons. They come together, to feed, to meet, to gather warmth. Their patterns fluctuate, random to me, as I move around them. And maybe random to them as they jockey for primacy of space and for food.

VREELAND RED

January 8, 2010. Red is a color that calls out for action, for attention, for review. This ceiling wants your attention, you are not to look anywhere else - not at your feet, not at the smelly urinals. Look up, observe, relish, bask in the glow of this red. It won't meet you because it only laps over the edge of the ceiling and has no intention of coming down the wall to be level with your gaze. You must observe it.

FROSTBITE FALLS

January 6, 2011. Water again, frozen, one of the great changers on our planet. I love the bulb of ice, as if the water was so eager to flow over the edge, but not to drop to the pool below. The morning sun glinted off the frozen droplets, and we have caught the water in the act of moving over the land, but then frozen, not reaching beyond its basin. Caught in the act of splashing and then freezing in the middle of it.

I AM A BIRD NOW

January 5, 2011. If I could fly, would I visit a distant arctic shore? How far would I fly over a wide ocean to be where I needed to be or to be with the one I love? Could I follow a rocky shore, searching each inlet, scouring mountain cliffs, not knowing what I was searching for, but looking anyway? What invention - this paper bird, the snowbank, the sidewalk that looks like sand. It makes me want to soar, to go away, to migrate and wait for spring.

MIST AND SHROUD

January 2, 2010. What a glorious day for a walk. There was a light rain falling over the snowy fields in the park and the mist was rising from the ground to drift upward through the trees. The park was a mysterious place with each step, and familiar sights looked new and unknown. Paths going into the center of the park are shrouded and men and dogs emerge from the mist as if from a dream. And some are. The sun attempted to break through the cloud cover, rays of light breaking through the morning mist. The mist creates a scrim, a solid background against which to view patterns from branches and trees. From this you can see how people created patterns on solid fabric, how someone wanted to see how to weave a design to remember a sight. Bless them for that.

ICE FALL

January 1, 2011. North end of the park. Snow melt, cold freeze. What isn't beautiful about a frozen fall of water? It glistens in the sunlight, mutes and softens the colors of anything under it. It is a worker of wonders in nature. Repeated melting and freezing deepens the cracks in stone until a break is inevitable. The frozen water wraps the stone here, embracing it with a brightness that belies the force it will bring to bear in wearing it away.

LOST TREES

December 30, 2010. Abandoned, stacked, left alone. These trees, destined to decorate someones home, are homeless, bound with colored rope - green, blue and red. The red rope looks so soft and unnecessary given that the tree is wrapped in a mesh. Or is it just for adornment, gilding the lily as it were.