WOOD SNAKE

April 14, 2010. In the early morning light the grasses and moss have an electric edge to them and their colors shimmer in the indirect rays of the coming sun. The moss wraps and caresses this old root, the edges soft and rounded from exposure and wear. It curves across this space where it is exposed, like a snake before it disappears again below the dank earth. I want to remove it, take it with me, retain the beauty that it is, outside of its setting. I don't.

MASK ON THE TRACKS

April 10, 2011. Sometimes I almost abandon any semblance of good sense and want to do something stupid like clamber down on the tracks to save art. Such was the case here. I almost couldn't bear to see this mask lying there, repeatedly crossed over by the subway. Impassively challenging, red lips wanting to speak, drawing you to them. Green face growing in front of you. I still wonder if it is there and if I need to add a tool to my briefcase, a telescoping hand to grasp things beyond my reach but not my appreciation.

MEDITATION

April 9, 2011. Craftsmen so often create beauty out of utility. This fan was only meant to work, to fulfill its function. Did the metalworker know that the metal would rub in ways that would create a shimmering surface, while the rest became covered with the grime of air and fumes? Did he think about the star shape coming to rest randomly in different spots every day, always contrasting with the sharp and straight cross shapes, and all of it contained within the eternal circle. The pigeon guards sprout from the flat surface above. Another world, a different universe, a microcosm of a word filled with belching smoke and barren trees? And then the city reflected below. A living tree and life behind the windows of the apartment building. It all came together just by chance.

MASK FACE

March 31, 2011. This drawing of a mask wasn't meant for everyone. The artist applied it to the back of a phone booth in the subway. To see it, you had to stop, turn away from the tracks and look behind a support post. Why? Was it to force you to look for it? Was the act of standing in front of it, or simply walking past it too easy? Here you had to make a conscious decision to view it. And this seems to be the view the artist wanted - the far side of the face was only to be imagined.